Outer Dark

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Outer Dark is U.S. novelist Cormac McCarthy's second novel, published in 1968. The time and setting are nebulous, but can be assumed to be somewhere in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The novel tells of a woman who bears her brother's child. The child is then left in the woods to die by the brother, who tells his sister that the child died of natural causes and was buried. The sister discovers this lie, and decides to set out and find the child for herself.

The sister is soon followed by the brother with the intent of returning her home. Over the remainder of the novel the two characters follow separate paths. The sister encounters often generous people who offer their help in different ways. The brother, however, finds difficulty in his attempts to locate his sister and is constantly pursued by three violent and frightening strangers who murder many of the people he comes in contact with.