Suttree: A Dark Demystification of 1950s America
Ah, to be an American living in the prosperous and picturesque backdrop of postwar growth. With its glistening art-deco architecture, austentatiously-designed luxury automobiles, and white picket fence suburban neighborhoods, the 50s are a decade oft looked upon with reminiscence by the old and intergenerational jealousy by the young in today's society. However Cormac McCarthy, a modern-day literary legend according to fans and scholars alike, offers a darker, grittier, and more visceral depiction of this mythical period of American history in his tragic, frank, and sometimes humoruous novel Suttree.
With a true talent for taking readers to the darkest corners of the human experience, McCarthy paints a backdrop and cast of characters that are drab and depressing - a nonlinear cacaphony of unfortunate events and even less fortunate individuals that one cannot help but look away from, like a train going off its rails. Set in Knoxville, Tenessee, the novel follows the adventures of one Cornelius Suttree, an educated and well-to-do vagabond who has abandoned both his family and his life of priviledge to live on the fringes of society to scrape a meager living as a fisherman, dwelling in a dilapidated houseboat on the Tenessee River. His adventures take the reader up and down the Tenessee's muddy banks, amongst the slums following its twisting path through the city, in and out of desolate prison cells and work camps, and through the dimly lit, dangerous bars and redlight districts of Knoxville's seedy underbelly. It is in this den of misfits and outcasts that we are introduced to a cast of characters, one as strange as the next.
Perhaps one of the strangest and most compelling characters of the novel is Suttree's unlikely companion Gene Harrogate, a young and naive outcast who remains painfully optimistic despite living a life that McCarthy paints as pittiably futile and decidedly delinquent. Having met the titular character during a short stint in jail (following a humorously strange arrest, the details of which I will leave the reader to discover), Harrogate follows the progression of the story like a mongrel dog begging for scraps - ugly, dirty, yet somehow too charming to shoo away. Throughout the novel he ensnares Suttree in bizarre schemes intended to lift them both from the grips of poverty, from poisoning bats to sell their carcasses for research to exploring the cities caves and sewers intent on tunnelling into a bank vault. In true McCarthy fashion, these plots and schemes are wrapped in futility and sometimes tragedy, yet never fail to surprise and leave the reader either chuckling or scratching their head. More than once I found myself shaking my head in disbelief as another ill-fated operation was revealed.
Perhaps the novel's most significant contribution, however, is how it serves to tear down the picturesque and falsely-constructed image modern Americans have of this transitional period in history. Set far from the white picket fences and manicured lawns of the growing suburbs, Suttree's world is punctuated by abject misery and absolute poverty; by overt racism, unapologetic criminality, and quiet desperation. Known best across the literary world for his dark and depressing scenery, perhaps most notably demonstrated in his more well-known works such as The Road and No Country for Old Men, McCarthy creates a world in which characters live on in a truly hopeless yet pragmatic and persistent state of being: where a cast of desperados scrounge the riverbanks for rusted car parts to sell, bands of prostitutes walk the dimly-lit streets of hobbled-together ghettos, and the downtrodden subside off of catfish and turtles exhumed from murky, sewage-filled waters. It is here among the desperate, the hungry, the criminal, and the intoxicated, that we see an unadulterated glimpse into the dark shadow cast by the prosperity of postwar America - a gritty reality that history books and evening sitcoms ignore and cast aside. This is an America in stark contrast to what the average citizen conjures up when fantasizing about this romanticized era of hot rods and wholesome family values. A reality that we have chosen to push out of our minds, to forget, lest we shatter the illusion. McCarthy remembers, however. He doesn't want us to forget, and her certainly has no qualms about shattering our illusions.
Original photography by Michael MacDonald