Oh Cormac McCarthy...
Anyone who is familiar with Cormac McCarthy's writing knows he has a penchant for the dark and depraved side of humanity. He's not afraid of it and likes to examine the many different ways it can manifest. This book is no exception, and indeed, may be one of his darkest works.

There is nothing remotely warm or comforting to be found in these pages. Even his most poetic descriptions of nature, the beauty, the indifference to man, the majesty regardless, that raised Blood Meridian out of the literal desert of the worst of what man inflicts upon fellow man seems to be toned down in Child of God, just as the comfort of simple human kindness and connection is held back from the main player in this tale, Lester Ballard. Everything within this story is stark and in your face, presented in terse burst of poetic writing. The weather is always cold and gray, raining miserable or outright frozen, stiff and dead. There is no comfort of home and hearth, no hearty meal, no warm cleansing bath, no dry bedding at the end of a day. Never once does our main character know love or warmth from his fellow man, indeed, never once from his own parents. He is left always an outsider, no real human connection of even meaningful conversation. He is utterly alone. He quickly loses the only home he ever had, empty as it was, as his only possession of familiar comfort and connection. He is left with one possession, a rifle, the only thing he ever worked for and outright owns, this instrument of death. He is completely uneducated both in scholastic endeavor and also in what it means to be a citizen of the human race. He is forever an alien outsider, no clue how to connect, how to interact. He is a creep and acts creepy even to some pretty base, stupid, equally uneducated and depraved local townspeople.

So starved is this character for soft comfort and beauty he wastes the few coins he has on winning the biggest stuffed animals at a target shooting game at the fair. And not just one useless giant teddy bear will suffice he wins three of these dead useless facsimiles apparently as surrogate friends and family awaiting his return in the evening at the cold lifeless hearth. When he tries to extend his inept offer of friendship to a local girl with a retarded baby he never thinks to bring one of these toys for the child, rather he catches a living bird to give to the child, a "playpretty" which is immediately savaged and destroyed by the unthinking, unfeeling child.

It is no surprise this wasted, empty individual whom no one ever extended a helping hand towards soon goes from bad to worse upon a chance encounter of two recently deceased lovers. Just as he used lifeless, stiff stuffed animals as companions he uses lifeless, stiff women as lovers. Oh reader, it's bad and there is no redemption for anyone.