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  • All the Pretty Horses

  • The Border Trilogy, Book One
  • Written by: Cormac McCarthy
  • Narrated by: Frank Muller
  • Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (146 ratings)

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All the Pretty Horses

Written by: Cormac McCarthy
Narrated by: Frank Muller
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Publisher's Summary

Cormac McCarthy is a quiet, unassuming presence in American fiction today, but like the slow, measured voices of many of his characters, he speaks with an authority and conviction that demands an audience. All the Pretty Horses, McCarthy's sixth novel, is a cowboy odyssey for modern times. Set in the late 1940s, it features the travels and toils of a 16-year-old East Texan named John Grady Cole, caught in the agonizing purgatory between adolescence and adulthood.

At the start of the novel, Cole's grandfather has just died, his parents have permanently separated, and the family ranch, upon which he had placed so many boyish hopes, has been sold. Rootless and increasingly restive, Cole leaves Texas, accompanied by his friend Lacey Rawlins, and begins a journey across the vaquero frontier into the badlands of northern Mexico. In spite of its hard realities and spare telling, All the Pretty Horses is a lyrical and richly romantic story, chronicling - along with the erosion of the frontier - the loss of an era.

©1992 Cormac McCarthy (P)1992 Recorded Books, LLC

What the critics say

National Book Award, 1992


"This is a novel so exuberant in its prose, so offbeat in its setting and so mordant and profound in its deliberations that one searches in vain for comparisons in American literature." (Publishers Weekly)

What listeners say about All the Pretty Horses

Average Customer Ratings
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A tour de force!

Such a brilliantly told story. Haunting descriptions of the Texan and Mexican hinterland and Frank Muller provides excellent narration.

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2 people found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Another McCarthy Classic

Harder to get into then some of his works, but every bit as vivid and beautiful and moving

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1 person found this helpful

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Captivating, vivid, tragic

Captivating, vivid, tragic. I got totally absorbed listening to this audio. Great narrator and great story. I will read more of Cormack McCarthy

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Great Book

No one makes me feel more in the story than Cormac McCarthy. I love his books. In my opinion, you don't 'read' McCarthy's books, you live them. Really enjoyed this book.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Vividly and beautifully told story !

Absolutely loved this tale so richly narrated. As a horse person, you can fall into this story and hope it doesn’t end.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Well Written and Narrated

I enjoyed this book very much. The writing was true to the characters and the narration was very good. my only wish was that the excerpts in Spanish had been explained, but overall it was excellent.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Holy smokes what a book!

One of the best narrarator work I have heard in hundreds of books. Fantastic, and also just an incredible book.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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Fantastic

As usual Cormac McCarthy has done a great job creating an image of the scenes in the book with written words. Furthermore, Frank Muller’s narration what spot on, can’t think of a better narrator.

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    5 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars
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Absolutely beautiful

My challenges with this book were the Spanish dialog and the varying volume of the narrator. I think I would have gotten more out of the story had I known what the translation of the Spanish was. The narrator had a very soothing voice, but it was difficult to hear it clearly on speaker or in the car because the tone is very low and soft. Otherwise, the story itself and the metaphors were deeply moving.

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  • KCL
  • 2023-07-03

Life laid bare

The starkness of our journey through life, in the end alone, is set in a land that is not yet in the past or in the future.

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