The Orchard Keeper

Cormac McCarthy's debut novel, reissued as part of the Picador Collection.

Set in rural Tennessee between the world wars, The Orchard Keeper is the unique, darkly biblical debut novel from the legendary author of Blood Meridian and The Road, Cormac McCarthy.

John Wesley Rattner is a young boy when his father is murdered. Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger, strangled him to death.

By chance, John and Marion will meet. They will not recognize each other; John will not know what this man has done.

An experimental debut following in the footsteps of William Faulkner, this is a magnificent conjuring of an American landscape - and a devastating portrayal of innocence lost.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.

'McCarthy has the best kind of Southern style' - New York Times

'A complicated and evocative exposition of the transience of life' - Harper's