Suttree

Name: Suttree
ISBN: 9780330474900

by Cormac McCarthy · first published 1979

7mentions

5recommended by

7HN commenters

2011–2023first – last mentioned

71% recommend29% neutral

Why HN recommends it

Praised for its vivid, funny and sad portrait of an outcast drifting through Knoxville, with a Huckleberry Finn-like episodic feel; a good pick for readers who want McCarthy beyond The Road and Blood Meridian.

Summarised by Claude from recommending comments

Fiction & Literature

By the author of Blood Meridian and All the Pretty Horses, Suttree is the story of Cornelius Suttree, who has forsaken a life of privilege with his prominent family to live in a dilapidated houseboat on the Tennessee River near Knoxville. Remaining on the margins of the outcast community there--a brilliantly imagined collection of eccentrics, criminals, and squatters--he rises above the physical and human squalor with detachment, humor, and dignity.

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View on Open Library ISBN 9780330474900

Mentions per year

What Hacker News says

clutchski · Jun 10, 2011 · Recommends

Suttree by Cormac McCarthy.
on “Ask HN: What is the greatest book you've ever read?” ↗
ivanmaeder · Dec 12, 2018 · Recommends

…I didn't. Not in the same way that I could feel the heat in "Heart of Darkness" (Joseph Conrad) or the sun and the trees in "From the Holy Mountain" (William Dalrymple) or the weight of the world in "Suttree" (Cormac McCarthy). But it's a good ride of a story. 6. "In Dreams Begin Responsibilities and Other Stories" (Delmore Schwartz) I knew this book from university. And then a few weeks ago: I needed…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2018?” ↗
cypherpunks01 · Apr 25, 2017 · Recommends

The only Cormac McCarthy novel I've read is Suttree and it's incredible. Apparently it's semi-autobiographical, and it reads like a Huckleberry Finn outcast/hobo/dark alternate reality and extremely funny and sad the entire way through. It's entirely gripping…
on “Cormac McCarthy Explains the Unconscious” ↗
david_shaw · Jan 28, 2023 · Recommends

Unrelated to his typewriter, I'm currently reading Cormac McCarthy's Suttree, and I'm really enjoying it. I had previously only associated McCarthy with The Road and Blood Meridian, but I'm glad I gave some of his other work a shot.
on “Cormac McCarthy's Olivetti Lettera 32” ↗
crackedbassoon · Dec 29, 2022 · Recommends

…literary adaptations nor scholarly treatises; just accessible, fun reads with enough accuracy and attention to detail for a layman like me. I’m working my way through Cormac McCarthy. This year I read Suttree and The Crossing, which are both excellent IMO. I discovered these beautifully written character observations: Matrix (Lauren Groff), Small Things Like These (Claire Keegan), and The Crimson Petal and…
on “Ask HN: Books you read in 2022 and recommend for 2023” ↗
ghostbrainalpha · Aug 27, 2019 · Mentions

You think Cormac Mccarthy could have gotten the funds to write Suttree through Kickstarter? Or honestly even AFTER writing Suttree would have been able to get enough funding to write one of his better books?
on “Just Enough Piracy Can Be a Good Thing” ↗
brenainn · May 15, 2023 · Mentions

…Meridian and No Country for Old Men are like this, and The Road to a lesser extent (the evil is mortal men, it's just there's a lot of them). As others have mentioned, not all his books are like that. Suttree is downright funny at times. I've always thought Cormac McCarthy has a great fear of evil and war and those bleak stories are his expression of it. Humans are in a downward spiraling race of shedding…
on “Crossing the Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy and American History” ↗