Child of God - Cormac McCarthy
"he turned and shook the rifle alternately at the flooded creek and at the gray sky out of which the rain still fell grayly and without relent and the curses that hailed up above the thunder of the water carried to the mountain and back like echoes from the clefts of bedlam."
At once futuristic and ancient, Child of God presents a story of disquieting horror dwarfed in a frame of wild nature and timelessness. Centre stage is Hank Ballard, a tin man whose clockwork is damaged yet inexorably drives him on. He is empty, unreflective as water in a pitch black cavern, and like that water he flows ever downwards. He is evicted and the first scene is a carnivaleque auction of his house and land, where while attempting to halt the sale he winds up knocked unconscious by an axe.
