In a moment of synchronicity, Cormac McCarthy died two days before I finished this book. It was strange to see him in the headlines because I had been talking about him since I opened N Scott Momaday's masterpiece House Made of Dawn. I don't like to give equivalences when describing books, but in this case it's an obvious one. This book was a clear influence on McCarthy, either directly or indirectly. And it is powerful.

The story is about Abel, a longhair indigenous American, set between 1945 and 1952. He has grown up on a reservation in New Mexico. He suffers the indignity of this experience, and many other slights and insults to tradition and life, like a thousand small cuts.

The story is of this experience of slow erasure, of violent intolerance. I is incredible to think that this book is over 50 years old. Each section has a different voice but all are captivating. Each skips between memory and story, presenting a microcosm of an experience suffered by so many. And each is beautiful and devastating.