Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy by Steven Frye (review)

Reviewed by: Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy by Steven Frye Rachel B. Griffis Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy. By Steven Frye. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2023. ISBN 978-0-8173-6109-9. Pp. 194. 29. 95. Since the publication of The Road (2006), theological scholarship on Cormac McCarthy's work has become more common, especially his interactions with the Christian tradition. Steven Frye's Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy contributes to this body of criticism by illuminating "a redemptive cartography and a geography of hope" in the work of a novelist who takes seriously both scientific and End Page 149 philosophical principles that are often considered at odds with a Christian perspective on human experience and the world itself (18). These scientific and philosophical principles point characters and readers toward tragedy, fatalism, determinism, and an indifferent universe. However, as Frye demonstrates, McCarthy's debt to the naturalist literary tradition results in his representations of redemption and hope through beauty and narrative. Although the literary naturalist promulgates a deterministic, Darwinian perspective, the form of the novel allows writers and readers to explore transcendent categories, such as hope and redemption, alongside science and philosophy. As Frye argues, "meaning in the human experience emerges from the raw material of science and philosophy, but it lives perpetually in the realm of the aesthetic" (18). Beginning with The Orchard Keeper (1965) and ending with The Road, Frye moves through McCarthy's novels (sans The Passenger and Stella Maris, both published in 2022, while Frye's book was in production) noting ways the author's naturalistic bent creates space for him to explore the possibility of hope alongside the pessimism of science and philosophy. Chapter 2 is focused on the role of the natural world in The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark (1968), and Child of God (1974). In his reading of McCarthy's first novel, Frye notes tension between emerging technologies in Tennessee in the 1930s and natural forces that are stronger than the human will. One example of this tension is the early scene in the novel wherein men's attempt to repair a fence is blighted by a tree trunk that has grown around the barbed wire. In the section on Outer Dark, Frye provides many insights into the interplay between the novel's biblical and theological frame and its naturalists elements, such as the way Culla and Rinthy Holme are determined by economics, social status, and gender. Frye sees no conflict between these two aspects of the novel, and he suggests that "religious systems mirror and perhaps emerge from nature itself, since incest deforms the natural world by corrupting the very material process by which life perpetuates" (39). Likewise, Frye provides examples of specific naturalist works that influenced McCarthy by drawing links between Child of God and Frank Norris's novels, Vandover and the Brute and McTeague. Frye interprets Lester Ballad's label as a "child of God" as an expression of the brutality and depravity he shares with all other human animals. Chapters 3 and 4 are devoted to Suttree (1979) and Blood Meridian (1985), respectively. Frye refers to Suttree as a city novel in the vein of other naturalist works, such as Stephen Crane's Maggie: A Girl of the Streets or Theodore Dreiser's Sister Carrie. He argues that McCarthy's depiction of Knoxville resonates with "other American city novels and points to the constraints and tragic limitations people face in a brutal and law-driven material world" (61). Amid this vivid setting, Frye argues that McCarthy focuses on Cornelius Suttree's interiority. As the title character prepares to leave Knoxville, Frye discusses an allusion to the crucifixion of Christ when a young boy gives Suttree water, calling it a "moment of hope, a respite from the harsh vicissitudes of a fallen world" (63). In his analysis of Blood Meridian, End Page 150 Frye notes that the Western genre has traditionally conveyed hope to its readers in its representations of freedom and possibility. The naturalistic elements of the novel, however, challenge many myths associated with the Western, such as American exceptionalism. . .