The Outer Dark

Outer Dark is the second novel by U.S. writer Cormac McCarthy, published in 1968. The time and setting are nebulous, but can be assumed to be somewhere in the Southern United States, sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The novel tells of a woman (Rinthy) who bears her brother's baby. The brother, Culla, leaves the nameless infant in the woods to die, but he tells his sister that the newborn died of natural causes and had to be buried. Rinthy discovers this lie, and decides to set out and find the baby for herself.

Meanwhile, the baby has been discovered in the woods and taken by a nameless tinker.

Culla strikes out aimlessly across the country attempting to escape the circumstances that have enshrouded him and forget his sins. Rinthy, despite her post-labor state, tries in vain to track down the Tinker. The siblings' personalities and modes of behavior are very similar but their experiences differ greatly.