Outer Dark is a novel set in a rural, backwoods American South, probably around the turn of the twentieth century. A young woman named Rinthy gives birth to her brother Culla's child, and Culla abandons the baby in the woods. The two then wander separately, each searching in their own way, while a menacing trio of strangers moves through the countryside. The story has the feel of a dark fable, with an atmosphere of guilt and dread. It is an early example of McCarthy's gothic imagination and his rich, hard prose.
Quotes
The man sat watching the road, the weedstem twirling in his mouth and the threadthin shadow of it going long and short upon his face like a sundial's hand beneath a sun berserk.
Don't take in no strangers while I'm gone. She sighed deeply. They ain't a soul in this world but what is a stranger to me, she said.
Yes mam. I'm sorry you've had such troubles. Mm-hmm. Sorry. Don’t need sorry. Not in this house. Sorry laid the hearth here. Sorry ways and sorry people and heavensent grief and heartache to make you pine for your death.
And she waited again at the front door with it open, poised between the maw of the dead and loveless house and the outer dark like a frail thief.