The Orchard Keeper

The Orchard Keeper is the 1965 debut novel of American author Cormac McCarthy. The story explores the relationship between a young boy and the man who killed the boy’s father; it explores themes of The Chaos of the Wilderness, Cyclical Violence, and The Encroachment of Modernity. The Orchard Keeper won a number of awards, while McCarthy’s later works would earn him a Pulitzer Prize.

This guide is written using an eBook version of the 1993 First Vintage International edition.

Content Warning: The source material features depictions of sexual assault.

Plot Summary

Red Branch is a small mountain town in Tennessee. During the period between World War I and World War II, a young boy named John Wesley Rattner lives in the mountains near Red Branch. Arthur Ownby is a loner who lives outside the town next to a dilapidated orchard. An outlaw named Marion Sylder also lives in the area and bootlegs alcohol, which is illegal due to the Prohibition laws that were enacted during this period.

Marion uses a fast car to run illegal whiskey across rural Tennessee. Together with his friends, he uses the car to pick up young men and women who need a ride. He scares the youngsters for his own amusement and intimidates the women into having sex with him. Marion picks up a hitchhiker named Kenneth Rattner. Unknown to Marion, Kenneth is John’s father. Kenneth attacks Marion, planning to kill the outlaw and take his money. During the struggle, however, Marion overpowers Kenneth and strangles him to death. Fearing that he will be caught and tried for murder, Marion debates what he should do with Kenneth’s body. He spots the apple orchard next to Arthur’s house and decides that no one will visit the dilapidated site. He hides the dead body among the rotting apple trees, placing the corpse inside a gravel pit.

Arthur finds Kenneth’s dead body. Rather than go to the police, he develops a fascination with the rotting corpse. He regularly cuts down tree branches and fashions wreaths to lay over the pit. John and his mother, Mildred, come to terms with Kenneth’s unexplained disappearance. They assume that he is dead, and Mildred forces her son to swear he will find and kill the man who murdered his father. He worries about how he will do so.

Marion continues to bootleg whiskey. He ventures out one evening to collect a shipment from near Arthur’s home. While collecting the shipment, he sees Arthur take a shotgun and shoot holes in a tank that has been installed on his property by the local government. Fearing that Arthur might turn the gun on him, Marion sneaks away. Arthur watches Marion go.

On another occasion, Arthur is in his orchard during the evening. He watches as Marion loses control of his vehicle and crashes into a creek. John has recently set several traps in the area, hoping to make money by selling animal hides. While checking his traps, he hears the car crash. He comes to investigate and tries to help Marion, not knowing that Marion killed his father. Likewise, Marion has no idea that John is Kenneth’s son. John drags Marion from the water. Marion takes John back to his house to dry out and warm up.

Marion is grateful to John for saving his life. He presents one of his beloved dogs to John as a gift, though John’s mother refuses to allow her son to keep the dog in the house. The two men become friends, forming an almost paternal bond. Marion teaches the fatherless John how to hunt in the mountains. Not long after, the police find the crashed car in the stream, as well as the stash of whiskey that was damaged in the crash. They also discover that the government-installed tank has been damaged. The police urge John to confess to bootlegging the whiskey. They promise to drop the charges if he names Marion as the real bootlegger. John refuses to betray his friend.

Arthur is wrongly suspected of being involved in the whiskey bootlegging. Spotting the government agents on his property, the anti-government Arthur fires his gun at them. Several officers are wounded, and after they retreat to plan another attempt, Arthur slips away. During this time, Marion continues to move illegal whiskey across the state. His new car stalls during one run, and he is left alone in the car with the contraband whiskey. The police catch Marion and charge him with bootlegging. Marion goes to prison, while Arthur is eventually caught and sent to a mental health institution for shooting police officers.

John does not know what is happening to Arthur and Marion until it is too late and he can do nothing to help them. Now a young man, John decides that he cannot live in Tennessee. After a few years, he returns home to discover that the entire town has been abandoned.