Mark Twain once wrote, "We are nothing but echoes." Despite this pronouncement, Twain's voice continues to reverberate in the 21st century. Twain's
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
helped define modern American literature, creating The Huck Finn Tradition in contemporary writing.
This volume discusses the intertextual connections between Twain's iconic novel and eight works by celebrated American author Cormac McCarthy, including
Suttree, The Orchard Keeper, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men
, and
The Road
. By chronicling the diverse scholarly comparisons between Twain and McCarthy and exploring the echoes of Twain and Huck Finn in McCarthy's writing, this study reveals how McCarthy has not only absorbed Twain's tradition, but transformed it, with consequences that surpass the work of other Twain heirs.