Cities of the Plain,the final volume of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy,binds together the separate tales of John Grady Cole from All the Pretty Horses and Billy Parham from The Crossing to create a more realistic Billy and a more mythic John Grady.Within the confines of a relatively spare 293 pages,the classic "all-american cowboy" John Grady devotes himself to saving every hurt or wounded creature that crosses his path,a noble and impossible task that leads ultimately to his own destruction.The tragedy of his failed rescue of the epilectic prostitute Magdalena makes a martyr of the near-faultless John Grady,yet McCarthy stubbornly refuses to let the novel backslide into blubbery melodrama.Told in both McCarthy's signature lyrical style and his dead-on ranchero dialogue,Cities of the Plain ends the trilogy at the height of McCarthy's storytelling skill.

In this magnificent new novel,the National Book Award-winning author of All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing fashions a darkly beautiful elegy for the American frontier.It is 1952 and John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are working as ranch hands in New Mexico,not far from the proving grounds of Alamogordo and the cities of E1 Paso and Juarez.Their life is made up of trail drives and horse auctions and stories told by campfire light.They value that life all the more because they know it is about to change forever.

The change comes when John Grady falls in love with a beautiful,ill-starred Mexican prostitute and sets in motion a chain of events as violent as they are unstoppable.Haunting in its beauty,filled with sorrow,humor,and awe,Cities of the Plain is genuine American epic.