Suttree by Cormac McCarthy is a piece of Southern Gothic fiction published in 1979. Considered a modern classic of American literature, it exemplifies McCarthy’s characteristic use of imagery, existentialist exploration, and societal criticism.

McCarthy is the author of 12 novels, including bestsellers Blood Meridian (1985), All the Pretty Horses (1992), and the Pulitzer-prize-winning novel The Road (2006). The Road and his novel No Country for Old Men (2005) were adapted into celebrated films. McCarthy was born in Rhode Island but raised in Tennessee. His life in Knoxville and his Catholic upbringing are said to be the source of inspiration for Suttree, which is widely considered to be a semi-autobiographical novel.

Content Warning: This study guide quotes and obscures the author’s use of the n-word. The novel and this study guide reference death by suicide, racism, sex work, the death of a child, and addiction.

Plot Summary

The novel opens with a bleak description of Knoxville, Tennessee’s poorest areas in the year 1951. Suttree is a man who has recently been released from prison, has disavowed his family, and now lives in a rundown houseboat, making meager earnings by fishing in polluted water. Suttree’s uncle finds him, but Suttree is disinterested in reconnecting with his family. Suttree feels hopeless, but chooses to live in the moment, trying to avoid his past and not contemplate the future.

The narrative flashes back to when Suttree was in prison, where he met a young man named Harrogate. Harrogate was imprisoned for having sex with a farmer’s watermelon patch. Harrogate becomes attached to Suttree, but Harrogate annoys the other prisoners and causes problems for the men who defend him. Suttree is distressed when his mother comes to visit him in prison, and he can’t face her. Shortly after, he is released from prison. Harrogate runs away from prison but is caught again.

The narrative returns to 1951. Suttree, now out of prison, meets up with his childhood friend J-Bone, who is also poor. Their group of friends runs into Callahan, an influential inmate Suttree met in prison. The day he meets Callahan again, Suttree gets extremely drunk and finds himself dragged out of the city and dumped in a street. Meanwhile, Harrogate has been released from prison and is searching Knoxville’s poorest neighborhoods for Suttree. When Harrogate finds Suttree, Suttree helps him figure out a place to live. Harrogate creates a makeshift home and does everything he can to get some money, including killing bats.

Suttree hears that his son has died. He travels back to his wife’s hometown but is met with an angry and resentful family. Suttree attends his son’s burial and agonizes over this loss. The sheriff picks him up and gives him five dollars for a bus back to Knoxville on the condition that Suttree never return.

In Knoxville, Suttree spends his days trying to fish and checking in on his friends like Harrogate and the old ragpicker. Sometimes, he and his friends get too drunk and start barfight brawls. At times, when Suttree is drunk and feels particularly hopeless, he falls asleep in church yards, thinking about his Catholic upbringing and his sins.

Harrogate concocts a plan to search the tunnels under Knoxville for entrance into bank vaults. He becomes obsessed with his scheme despite Suttree’s advice against it. Harrogate tries to detonate a wall within the tunnels, burying himself in sewage. The blast is so large that Knoxville feels it like an earthquake.

Suttree goes into the mountains to find some peace. Though there are moments of great beauty in the forest there, but he ultimately gets completely lost and spends too much time without food or shelter. A little while after, Suttree meets a new family on the river in Knoxville. The father, Reese, claims that the family makes good money from fishing mussels because they can sell the mussel’s shells and pearls for a considerable profit. The family is hospitable to Suttree, so he follows them a few hours upriver. He spends time living with them in a camp and fishing with them. He and Reese’s oldest daughter Wanda start sleeping together. Suttree is happy, but his happiness is crushed when a mudslide kills Wanda and destroys camp. Suttree returns to Knoxville, defeated yet again by the cruel turns in life.

Suttree falls in love with a woman named Joyce. Joyce is in sex work and makes a lot of money for both of them. They have a passionate relationship, and Suttree’s lifestyle changes. They get a new apartment, new clothes for Suttree, and even a new car. After a few months, however, Joyce has several mental health crises, and Suttree leaves her.

Harrogate has a new scheme in which he steals coins from pay phones. He is caught by the police, arrested, and put into incarceration on a three-to-five-year sentence. Suttree’s friends Leonard and J-Bone have left Knoxville for jobs in other cities. The old man under the bridge and the old ragpicker, former companions of Suttree’s, die. His friend Ab Jones is killed by the police. His friends Callahan and Hoghead are also murdered.

Suttree falls ill with typhoid fever. He spends days throwing up blood before J-Bone finds him and brings him to the hospital. In the hospital, Suttree has delusions and comes close to death. Ultimately, he gets better and goes back into the city, but many of his companions and friends are gone, and now a corpse is rotting in his houseboat.

Suttree says his goodbyes to Knoxville and hitchhikes to a new future.