CHILD OF GOD

New York: Random House, 1973. First edition (stated). Near fine in near fine jacket.. First printing of McCarthy's third novel, a work of great vigor and depravity praised by the optimistic but anonymous jacket copywriter as "perhaps the most accessible of McCarthy's novels." Perhaps. CHILD OF GOD considers the limits of human degradation, a topic of interest to the author in his pathbreaking youth just as it would be in his illustrious and acclaimed old age. The novel was the occasion of a literary achievement against which all the hollow machinery of latter-day Hollywood could avail nothing; its ill-conceived 2013 film adaptation at the hands of a much-overmatched James Franco soon fell from the world and left no marks in its passing. Presented with a card signed by McCarthy's legendary Random House editor, Albert Erskine, a gentleman of the old school who left no recorded objections to the novel's necrophilia and merely requested from his author some elaboration of the details (Luce). 8'' x 5.5''. Original quarter navy cloth with red boards and gilt-lettered spine. In original price-clipped dust jacket designed by Muriel Nasser. 197, [3] pages. Old bookstore price sticker and penciled price to front paste-down, unobtrusive. Trace shelfwear. Overall, bright, clean, and sharp.