Frontier worker (novel)
Grenzgänger (English original title: The Crossing ) is a novel by the US-American author Cormac McCarthy from 1994, the German translation by Hans Wolf was published in 1995. The book is the middle part of the series The Border Trilogy after its predecessor All the beautiful horses that ends with Land of the Free .
content
Like the previous book All the Beautiful Horses plays border commuter in the border area of the states of New Mexico and Mexico. Few hints indicate that the plot takes place before and during World War II . The focus is on the story of the farmer boy Billy Parham from the age of 16 to his early adulthood, as well as his family and his younger brother Boyd.
The story tells of three trips Billy Parham takes from New Mexico to neighboring Mexico. The first trip begins with some hunting trips that Billy, his father and occasionally his brother take. They set up wolf traps and watch to see if they have caught the animal that is threatening their herds.
Finally they hunt a pregnant she-wolf, but she keeps getting away. One day Billy discovers the trapped she-wolf while riding the traps. The first main part of the book begins with the discovery of the she-wolf: 16-year-old Billy Parham leaves his parents' house and sets off for Mexico to release the she-wolf he has caught there. On the way he meets other travelers and residents of the Chihuahua region with whom he has long philosophical conversations.
When he returned to his parents' farm months later, he found the house abandoned: his parents had been murdered, the horses stolen, only his brother Boyd, who was two years younger, survived and was placed with foster parents. From there they go to Mexico together to find the stolen horses.
This search, which makes up the second main part of the book, becomes a search for one's own identity and home. His brother Boyd stays behind in Mexico with the girl they picked up on the way. Billy Parham finally crossed the border for the third time when he was around 20 years old when he went to Mexico again to look for his brother. He learns that he has been shot, digs up his remains, and brings them across the border back to New Mexico. The last scenes show Billy alone and in a desperate state after a robbery in which his horse is seriously injured.
literature
- Cormac McCarthy: Cross-border commuters. German by Hans Wolf. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1997. 4th edition 2010, ISBN 978-3-499-13991-8 .