Editors Reads Verdict
The most plot-driven of the Border Trilogy novels and the one that brings John Grady Cole and Billy Parham together — the tragic momentum of the ending is earned by everything that precedes it in the trilogy.
What We Loved
- The reunion of John Grady Cole and Billy Parham pays off the investment in both characters across the trilogy
- The most conventionally plotted of the three novels — easier to read than The Crossing
- The epilogue, set decades later, is one of McCarthy's most moving passages
Minor Drawbacks
- Requires having read All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing to carry its full weight
- Magdalena is less fully realised than the male protagonists — she is more absence than character
- The tragic ending, though earned, can feel slightly schematic
Key Takeaways
- → The codes that governed the life of the cowboy — honour, loyalty, care for the land — are being made obsolete by the economy of the 1950s
- → Love that cannot be reasoned out of is not irrational — it is just not amenable to the arguments people use against it
- → The old men who remember what the West was like before are not nostalgic — they are grieving something real
| Author | Cormac McCarthy |
|---|---|
| Publisher | Vintage |
| Pages | 292 |
| Published | May 1, 1998 |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Literary Fiction, Western |
| Difficulty | Advanced |
| Best For | Readers who have completed All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing completing the Border Trilogy. |
The Last Cowboys
Harmon Watson’s ranch sits near the New Mexico-Texas border in the early 1950s. John Grady Cole, who rode across Mexico in All the Pretty Horses, is twenty years old and working as a hand. Billy Parham, who made three journeys into Mexico in The Crossing, is in his mid-thirties. The ranch is the last of a certain kind of world: the land is being sold off, the army is acquiring the range, and the life of the cowboy is ending.
Cities of the Plain is the most plot-driven of the three Border Trilogy novels. John Grady crosses into Juárez and falls in love with Magdalena — a young woman with epilepsy who works in a brothel controlled by a knife-fighter named Eduardo. The plot has the clarity of tragedy: you can see what is coming from a long way away, and the knowledge does not diminish the force of the arrival.
The Ending
The epilogue is set decades later, in the 1990s, and follows Billy Parham as an old man. It is one of McCarthy’s most explicitly elegiac passages — a meditation on the experience of having outlived your time and the things that gave your time its meaning. The conversation with a stranger at the end of the novel is as close as McCarthy gets to direct statement.
The trilogy as a whole — three novels about young men trying to act with honour in a world that is being reorganised around different values — is one of the great sustained achievements in American fiction of the last century.
Our rating: 4.3/5 — A worthy conclusion to the Border Trilogy: more accessible than The Crossing, more emotionally direct, devastating in its final pages.
Reading Guides
Frequently Asked Questions
What is "Cities of the Plain" about?
The conclusion of the Border Trilogy — John Grady Cole and Billy Parham are both working on a New Mexico cattle ranch in the early 1950s when John Grady falls in love with Magdalena, an epileptic prostitute across the border in Juárez.
Who should read "Cities of the Plain"?
Readers who have completed All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing completing the Border Trilogy.
What are the key takeaways from "Cities of the Plain"?
The codes that governed the life of the cowboy — honour, loyalty, care for the land — are being made obsolete by the economy of the 1950s Love that cannot be reasoned out of is not irrational — it is just not amenable to the arguments people use against it The old men who remember what the West was like before are not nostalgic — they are grieving something real
Is "Cities of the Plain" worth reading?
The most plot-driven of the Border Trilogy novels and the one that brings John Grady Cole and Billy Parham together — the tragic momentum of the ending is earned by everything that precedes it in the trilogy.
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