Outer Dark tells the tale of a woman giving birth to her brothers child. He leaves the child behind in the forest while she is resting from labour.
While she finds out what he has done, she goes out and tries to find her son. Meanwhile someone else has found him and is giving him a chance to live.
Both brother and sister set out on a voyage that will alter their lives ultimately ending in a heartbreaking collision.
Having read astonishing novels by Cormac McCarthy, this one was not in the same category. While No country for old men gave me outstanding monologues and dialogues and The Road gave me the desolate feeling of being on the run from the world and trying to survive an world already spent and burnt, Outer Dark gave me boredom. Maybe I don't get the clue of this novel, but it never truly gripped me by the throat. The only emotion I felt was when the child was mentioned. It still repulses me to think of what happened near the ending. Putting myself in the place of the sister trying to find her son, I would be stricken with grief, especially since I know what happened to him. Although it does shimmer through that it was written by a man. The emotions the woman goes through are just a little too distanced, I think most mothers would know what I mean.
Because of that, neither of the two protagonists won any sympathy with me. It was a story I struggled through and if it hadn't been such a short novel I wouldn't have finished it.
I've read a lot of McCarthy and this is the least one so far.
