All the Pretty Horses is a novel

Novel

A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....

 by U.S. author Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist and playwright. He has written ten novels, spanning the Southern Gothic, Western, and modernist genres. He received the Pulitzer Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road...

 published in 1992. Its romanticism

Romanticism

Romanticism was an artistic, literary and intellectual movement that originated in the second half of the 18th century in Europe, and gained strength in reaction to the Industrial Revolution...

 (in contrast to the bleakness of McCarthy's earlier work) brought the writer much public attention. The novel was a bestseller and won the U.S. National Book Award

National Book Award

The National Book Awards are a set of American literary awards. Started in 1950, the Awards are presented annually to American authors for literature published in the current year. In 1989 the National Book Foundation, a nonprofit organization which now oversees and manages the National Book...

 as well as the National Book Critics Circle Award

National Book Critics Circle Award

The National Book Critics Circle Award is an annual award given by the National Book Critics Circle to promote the finest books and reviews published in English....

. It is also the first of McCarthy's "Border Trilogy

The Border Trilogy

The Border Trilogy consists of three novels written by American author Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Cities of the Plain....

."

The book was adapted into a 2000 film with the same name, All the Pretty Horses

All the Pretty Horses (film)

All the Pretty Horses is a 2000 American romance western film, directed by Billy Bob Thornton and based on the novel of the same title by author Cormac McCarthy. It stars Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz...

, starring Matt Damon

Matt Damon

Matthew Paige "Matt" Damon is an American actor, screenwriter, and philanthropist whose career was launched following the success of the film Good Will Hunting , from a screenplay he co-wrote with friend Ben Affleck...

 and Penélope Cruz

Penélope Cruz

Penélope Cruz Sánchez is a Spanish actress. Signed by an agent at age 15, she made her acting debut at 16 on television and her feature film debut the following year in Jamón, jamón , to critical acclaim...

, and directed by Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton

Billy Bob Thornton is an American actor, screenwriter, director and musician. Thornton gained early recognition as a cast member on the CBS sitcom Hearts Afire and in several early 1990s films including On Deadly Ground and Tombstone...

.
The novel tells of John Grady Cole, a sixteen year old cowboy

Cowboy

A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...

 who grew up on his grandfather's ranch in San Angelo, Texas

Texas

Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...

.