From a good family, Cornelius Suttree—or Bud, as his drinking buddies call him—has given up a life of privilege to live out his days as a fisherman on a ramshackle houseboat on the banks of the Tennessee River in Knoxville. Eccentrics and downtrodden freaks on the fringes of society - criminals, alcoholics, homeless, whores and
he lives among fortune hunters - but his distance, humor and pride are able to lift Suttree out of this deep physical and mental misery.

In Suttree, first published in 1979, inspired in part by autobiography, Cormac McCarthy created a gigantic social tableau that moved dozens of characters, unlike his early novels. This is an overwhelming vision of the underworld in the pubs of the 1950s and the author's constant theme: the sultry, mystical and grotesque American South in every way. McCarthy created the Huckleberry Finn of modern times in Cornelius Suttree. According to its critics, Suttree is one of the most important American existentialist novels.