Set in rural Tennessee between the world wars, The Orchard Keeper is the unique, darkly biblical debut novel from the legendary author of Blood Meridian and The Road, Cormac McCarthy.

'McCarthy has the best kind of Southern style' – New York Times

John Wesley Rattner is a young boy when his father is murdered. Marion Sylder, an outlaw and bootlegger, strangled him to death.

By chance, John and Marion will meet. They will not recognize each other; John will not know what this man has done.

An experimental debut following in the footsteps of William Faulkner, this is a magnificent conjuring of an American landscape – and a devastating portrayal of innocence lost.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the best of modern literature.

'A complicated and evocative exposition of the transience of life' – Harper’s

Praise for Cormac McCarthy:

‘McCarthy worked close to some religious impulse, his books were terrifying and absolute’ – Anne Enright, author of The Green Road and The Wren, The Wren

'His prose takes on an almost biblical quality, hallucinatory in its effect and evangelical in its power' – Stephen King, author of The Shining and the Dark Tower series

'[I]n presenting the darker human impulses in his rich prose, [McCarthy] showed readers the necessity of facing up to existence' – Annie Proulx, author of Brokeback Mountain

Mr McCarthy has the best kind of Southern style, one that fuses risky eloquence, intricate rhythms and dead-to-rights accuracy * New York Times *
The feeling for the land and seasons is so intense as to be part of the story and there are scenes one will never forget . . . A complicated and evocative exposition of the transience of life. * Harper’s *
A true American original. * Newsweek *
McCarthy puts most other American writers to shame. His work itself repays the tight focus of his attention with its finely-wrought craftsmanship and its ferocious energy * New York Times Book Review *
McCarthy is a master stylist, perhaps without equal in American letters . . . In his hands, everything is done with consummate skill – a kind of maximalism with precision crafting * Village Voice *
No other novelist in America seems to have looked the work of Faulkner in the eye without blinking and lived to write in his spirit without sounding like a parody of the master * Dallas Morning News *

Cormac McCarthy was the author of many acclaimed novels, including Blood Meridian, Child of God and The Passenger. Among his honours are the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. His works adapted to film include All the Pretty Horses, The Road and No Country for Old Men – the latter film receiving four Academy Awards, including the award for Best Picture. McCarthy died in 2023 in Santa Fe, NM at the age of 89.