ZACK RUSKIN, THE SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

"A proper 400-page tome ... The totality of McCarthy's twin books is that of a doomed love story between brother and sister. Sharing, in unequal measure, a passion for one another that is scandalously far from platonic, McCarthy never outright references incest in either work, yet the subject looms large in both ... It's a compelling premise for a mystery, but answers are not the point of this dizzyingly metaphysical treatise on the human condition ... It's a lot to absorb, but the less you worry about how all these countless threads could possibly tie together, the better you'll be prepared for the eventual reality: They don't ... The legacy of McCarthy's new offerings is, much as the author would surely wish, both magnificent and cruelly impossible to define."