All The Pretty Horses

The Border Trilogy comprises three McCarthy novels: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), and Cities on the Plain (1998). Each of these novels concerns the life of young men as they live and work on both sides of the US-Mexico border during the 1940s and 1950s, a time when traditional ranching was becoming an outmoded way of life. All the Pretty Horses sets up common elements that recur throughout the three novels: the power of male bonds; a love and appreciation for the vaquero lifestyle; characters who have a naïve sense of justice encountering a bleak, nihilistic world; and the inherent tragedy of human connection. Notably, The Crossing was billed as a follow-up to All the Pretty Horses but features a different protagonist, Billy Parham, who travels to Mexico to release a captured wolf and ends up on a journey that costs him his entire family, including his brother Boyd. Billy and John Grady are the dual protagonists of Cities on the Plain, which features themes and character arcs that reverberate with the earlier novels: John Grady falls into trouble over a woman again but has the loyalty of a friend to rely on, and Billy tries to pragmatically save John Grady as he previously sought to save his brother; Billy sees John Grady as a romantic who cannot accept the way the world is.