something about Urban Waite's "The Terror of Living"

Urban Waite debuts with The Terror of Living: A Novel, a story of a chase sparked by greed, desperation, cruelty, and chance. The Terror of Living resembles Cormac McCarthy's 1997 hit, No Country for Old Men. So much so that I found Waite's rendition a little tedious. Waite's dialect-saturated narrative relies on a calculated use of demonstrative pronouns to achieve rural down-home authenticity; it all rang false for me. Waite has been recognized for this novel and another titled The Carrion Birds. Here he just simulates the McCarthy experience badly.

A thought on the film No Country for Old Men

In No Country for Old Men, the killer Anton deals in consequences. He is the harbinger of the heartless world, a bringer of death who does not decide who lives and dies. To his mind, what you're doing and where you find yourself traces back to either chance or to some choice you made. He has no patience for ambiguity; fortunes hinge on the flip of a coin and once you call it, results are sure to follow. In this story, Anton's primary target is the hunter Llewellyn Moss.

Moss, now finding himself the prey, resists the inevitable, plotting his escape as best he can given what little wiggle room he has. He acts, and when acted upon, he counters. If ultimately the outcome falls to chance, he will throw his weight on the scale and make sure his chance is the fighting kind.

Sheriff Bell reflects on both men: Permanence and change, fate and self-determination weigh on his mind. He sees men like Anton as evidence the light is fading from this world. After fate claims Moss and untethered chance visits Anton, Bell is left awake in a world that's always been dark and cold, dreaming of the succession of humble men like him who can't do much about it.