In the Appalachian town of Seville, Tennessee, a 27-year-old young man named Ballard is deprived of his property by the town government for not paying property taxes. He is forced to retreat to the wilderness and gradually degenerates into a pathological killer and necrophiliac. Ballard is an Appalachian native, an oddity to outsiders, an outlier to the local community. After a fire, Ballard went to live in a cave, taking on an increasingly primitive look. He is losing his house, his reputation, his social ties, and his life. Modern civilization gradually retreated backward into the wilderness, to the edge of the world, and finally there was no way back. How does a person become progressively deprived? How could a naked life exist without anything? He was determined to go on, for there was no way back, and the world was as lovely as any other day, but he was riding his mule to death. Child of God is Cormac McCarthy’s third novel, written in a sober, everyday style about murder and mysterious nature. The short, concise and thick sentences are interlaced with long, grotesque sentences, with rich southern Gothic flavor and dark romantic color. Under McCarthy’s indifferent and compassionate eyes, young Ballard’s lonely life was like a cruel and moving wilderness epic, with the exiles singing silently from beginning to end.