Our book club theme this year is "Villains." Blood Meridian was claimed to have the most evil literary character - Judge Holden. But with all the violence committed by nearly every character, it was a toss up as to who was the most evil. And we did wonder if McCarthy's use of violence and his attack on the meaning of life, didn't make him the villain.

We were saddened that the more we read, the more we became desensitized to the violence.

The violence makes this a man's book. And its subterranean meanings makes this a book better suited to an upper level college course than for a book club discussion.