No Country for Old Men Reviews

‘Somewhere out there is a true and living prophet of destruction, and I don’t want to confront him. I know he’s real. I have seen his work.’
With his pale blue eyes and dead stare, McCarthy’s villain Chigurh remains one of modern fiction’s most memorable bad guys. Set in West Texas, No Country for Old Men unfurls from the bloody aftermath of a clash of cartels, a deal gone wrong, and a very, very bad decision. Audiences remain captivated throughout by the stone-cold killer at the heart of McCarthy’s cinematic Western. Gérard DuBois, whose illustrations for Folio’s The Road won him the Moira Gemmill Illustrator of the Year Prize at the V&As, returns with his signature style that so perfectly complements McCarthy’s writing. His masterfully chosen colour palette paints scenes in black-and-white or faded desert hues, shot through with splashes of blood red. Through seven quietly arresting images, DuBois nods to traditional Western artists while capturing a stillness, often in the aftermath of violence or the tension of waiting. Bound in cloth screen-printed with a design by the artist, the cover art is muted yet beautifully rendered in dusky ochre. When you look closely, you glimpse the startling body count reached by the end of McCarthy’s modern Western masterpiece of American literature.  Discover more McCarthy novels here.