Very rarely do you find a book that feels like you are immersed in a whole universe…not just through its built world, but felt on a spiritual level. With his very first words, Cormac McCarthy invites you in with “Dear Friend,” before proceeding with page after page of the most saturated, convoluted prose until you finally reach the first piece of dialogue, exhausted and confused. (Get a reading sample and read the first three pages. You will quickly understand that McCarthy makes no compromises here.) And you ask yourself, “Will the next 700 pages be like this?” And in a way, yes, they will. The language constantly drifts between two riverbanks: McCarthy’s overall detailed and omniaware prose on one side, and the profane, grimy dialogue of everyday people on the other. There is a unique flow between them and sometimes these two riverbanks come very close together. We learn right from the start that our protagonist, Suttree, has a heart condition: his heart is in the right place — it just points in the wrong direction… which perfectly sums up his character. Coming from a wealthy family, he chooses instead to live among the outlaws and have-nots in Knoxville’s darkest corners, going through absolute hell. But in all this filth and dirt, there are brief, glimmering moments of genuine humanity that feel incredibly precious. The sense of community between these broken and lost people is the part of the book that really moved me in a broader “we are all in this shit together” sense. And don’t get me wrong, the book is not sentimental — it’s gruesome. McCarthy shows how life really is in all of its complexity and ugliness, and he managed to find beauty in it. So, is this a perfect masterpiece? No, it’s quite flawed: characters come and go, scenes without any real significance drag on, and the whole plot is often meandering or completely diffused. But that’s life, I guess. Oh, but it‘s definitely a great, flawed masterpiece and the flaws make it vibrant, make it feel alive. I haven’t had this feeling for a long time when closing a book: the feeling that you close a real world and say goodbye to real characters. And when you go back to your everyday life, you recognize that there is a different awareness… a new way of looking at things and at life itself.