Cormac McCarthy’s brutal novel has earned a reputation as one of the great works in literature, and it can be difficult to unpack. It’s violent, philosophical, filled with biblical language, historical figures, beautiful landscapes and passages that require reading more than once.

We’ll be going through Blood Meridian one chapter each day, keeping a running log of my thoughts are and I invite you to join me. These are some of the prompts I’ll be using as we go:

1. Where we are. A recap of the previous chapter to gather our bearings each day.
2. What stood out. What was disturbing, and confusing. What passages stayed with me.
3. Beneath the chapter. Picking ideas or themes from the chapter, such as: violence, free will vs. fate, morality, religion and biblical imagery, nature and the landscape, Manifest Destiny, absence of morality, historical accuracy when possible and more.
4. McCarthy’s prose. One short passages or even a single sentence that stood out.
5. Blood Meridian notebook. A running log keeping up with what we learn about the characters, what we learn, how they change and what they do.

The goal of this readalong isn’t to explain Blood Meridian to you, it’s about figuring out the book as we read.

I invite you to read a chapter each day with me, then listen to that days episode. Because each episode will discuss the chapter in detail, you should expect spoilers to everything we’ve read to that point.

If you’ve already read the book, you’re welcome too. I’m particularly interested in hearing how people who have spent more e time with the novel will interpret what we find.

Grab whatever edition of Blood Meridian you have. Because page numbers vary between editions, we’ll be organizing the daily reading by chapter.

Thanks for reading along with me.