McCarthy sandwiches his novels with devastating, poetic language that always humbles me as a reader. I hang on every sentence and marvel at his mastery of language, often used in ways I hadn't thought of before, but then the stories find their legs and I am absorbed completely into the characters and events as they unfold. This novel is no different. What I didn't expect, having only read Blood Meridian before this was how entertaining and funny so much of the core story would be. There are dark moments for the characters, for sure, but those are earned. McCarthy loves these characters and that love spreads across the page.