Calling the Border Trilogy a coming-of-age story is...one way to look at it for sure, given how it all ends. I love "The Crossing", top three McCarthy for me (the others being "Blood Meridian" of course and "Child of God").
Blood Meridian is getting all the praise, and that’s probably right, but I’d put The Crossing right up there with it. The last scene with the crippled dog conveys so much about the journey Billy has gone through, abba what it’s done to him… I don’t know if “coming of age” is so apt as “loss of innocence”
That stuff with the wolf in The Crossing was as deeply affecting to me as an adult as say, The Never Ending Story's Atrax in the Swamp of Sadness was for me as a kid.