Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr., July 20, 1933) is an American writer who has written twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and three short stories, spanning the

Western Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

and

post-apocalyptic Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction is a subgenre of speculative fiction in which the Earth's (or another planet's) civilization is collapsing or has collapsed. The apocalypse event may be climatic, such as runaway climate change; ast ...

genres. He is known for his graphic depictions of violence and his unique writing style, recognizable by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest contemporary American writers. McCarthy was born in

Providence, Rhode Island Providence is the capital and most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. One of the oldest cities in New England, it was founded in 1636 by Roger Williams, a Reformed Baptist theologian and religious exile from the Massachusetts ...

, although he was raised primarily in Tennessee. In 1951, he enrolled in the

University of Tennessee The University of Tennessee (officially The University of Tennessee, Knoxville; or UT Knoxville; UTK; or UT) is a public land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee. Founded in 1794, two years before Tennessee became the 16th state ...

, but dropped out to join the

US Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sig ...

. His

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, ''

The Orchard Keeper ''The Orchard Keeper'' is the first novel by the American novelist Cormac McCarthy. It won the 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. Plot ''The Orchard Keeper'' is set during the inter-war period in the hamlet of Red Br ...

'', was published in 1965. Awarded literary grants, McCarthy was able to travel to southern Europe, where he wrote his second novel, '' Outer Dark'' (1968). '' Suttree'' (1979), like his other early novels, received generally positive reviews, but was not a commercial success. A

MacArthur Fellowship The MacArthur Fellows Program, also known as the MacArthur Fellowship and commonly but unofficially known as the "Genius Grant", is a prize awarded annually by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation typically to between 20 and 30 indi ...

enabled him to travel to the American Southwest, where he researched and wrote his fifth novel, ''

Blood Meridian ''Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West'' is a 1985 in literature, 1985 Epic (genre), epic novel by American author Cormac McCarthy, classified under the Western (genre), Western, or sometimes the Revisionist Western, anti-Western, g ...

'' (1985). Although it garnered a lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since been regarded as his

magnum opus A masterpiece, ''magnum opus'' (), or ''chef-d’œuvre'' (; ; ) in modern use is a creation that has been given much critical praise, especially one that is considered the greatest work of a person's career or a work of outstanding creativity, ...

, with some labeling it the Great American Novel. McCarthy first experienced widespread success with '' All the Pretty Horses'' (1992), for which he received both the

National Book Award The National Book Awards are a set of annual U.S. literary awards. At the final National Book Awards Ceremony every November, the National Book Foundation presents the National Book Awards and two lifetime achievement awards to authors. The Nat ...

and the

National Book Critics Circle Award The National Book Critics Circle Awards are a set of annual American literary awards by the National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) to promote "the finest books and reviews published in English".The Crossing'' (1994) and '' Cities of the Plain'' (1998), completing the

Border Trilogy ''The Border Trilogy'' is a series of novels by the American author Cormac McCarthy: '' All the Pretty Horses'' (1992), '' The Crossing'' (1994), and '' Cities of the Plain'' (1998). The trilogy revolves around the coming of age and adventures ...

. His 2005 novel ''

No Country for Old Men ''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written and directed by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel of the same name. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin, th ...

'' received mixed reviews. His 2006 novel ''

The Road ''The Road'' is a 2006 post-apocalyptic novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy. The book details the grueling journey of a father and his young son over a period of several months across a landscape blasted by an unspecified cataclysm that ha ...

'' won the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

for Fiction. Many of McCarthy's works have been adapted into film. ''No Country for Old Men'' was adapted into a 2007 film, winning four

Academy Awards The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...

, including

Best Picture This is a list of categories of awards commonly awarded through organizations that bestow film awards, including those presented by various film, festivals, and people's awards. Best Actor/Best Actress *See Best Actor#Film awards, Best Actress#F ...

. '' All the Pretty Horses'', ''

'', and ''

Child of God ''Child of God'' (1973) is the third novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. It depicts the life of a violent young outcast and serial killer in 1960s Appalachian Tennessee. Though the novel received critical praise, it was not a financial ...

'' have also been adapted into films, while ''Outer Dark'' was turned into a 15-minute short. McCarthy had a play adapted into a 2011 film, ''The Sunset Limited''. McCarthy works with the

Santa Fe Institute The Santa Fe Institute (SFI) is an independent, nonprofit theoretical research institute located in Santa Fe, New Mexico, United States and dedicated to the multidisciplinary study of the fundamental principles of complex adaptive systems, inclu ...

(SFI), a multidisciplinary research center. At the SFI, he published the essay "

The Kekulé Problem "The Kekulé Problem" is a 2017 essay written by the American author Cormac McCarthy for the Santa Fe Institute (SFI). It was McCarthy's first published work of non-fiction. The science magazine ''Nautilus (science magazine), Nautilus'' first ran ...

" (2017), which explores the human unconscious and the origin of language. He was elected to the

American Philosophical Society The American Philosophical Society (APS), founded in 1743 in Philadelphia, is a scholarly organization that promotes knowledge in the sciences and humanities through research, professional meetings, publications, library resources, and communit ...

in 2012. His most recent novels, '' The Passenger'' and '' Stella Maris'', were published on October 25, 2022, and December 6, 2022, respectively.

Life

Early life

McCarthy was born in

, on July 20, 1933, one of six children of Gladys Christina McGrail and Charles Joseph McCarthy. His family were Irish Catholics. In 1937, the family relocated to

Knoxville, Tennessee Knoxville is a city in and the county seat of Knox County in the U.S. state of Tennessee. As of the 2020 United States census, Knoxville's population was 190,740, making it the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division and the state' ...

, where his father worked as a lawyer for the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

. The family first lived on Noelton Drive in the upscale Sequoyah Hills subdivision, but by 1941 had settled in a house on Martin Mill Pike in South Knoxville. McCarthy would later say, "We were considered rich because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks." Among his childhood friends was Jim Long (1930–2012), who would later be depicted as J-Bone in '' Suttree''. McCarthy attended St. Mary's Parochial School and

Knoxville Catholic High School Knoxville Catholic High School is a private, Roman Catholic high school in Knoxville, Tennessee. It is located within the Roman Catholic Diocese of Knoxville. History Knoxville Catholic High School, originally located on East Magnolia Avenue, reg ...

, and was an

altar boy An altar server is a lay assistant to a member of the clergy during a Christian liturgy. An altar server attends to supporting tasks at the altar such as fetching and carrying, ringing the altar bell, helps bring up the gifts, brings up the book ...

at Knoxville's Church of the Immaculate Conception. As a child, McCarthy saw no value in school, preferring to pursue his own interests. He described a moment when his teacher asked the class about their hobbies. McCarthy answered eagerly, as he later said, "I was the only one with any hobbies and I had every hobby there was ... name anything, no matter how esoteric. I could have given everyone a hobby and still had 40 or 50 to take home." In 1951, he began attending the

(UTK) but dropped out in 1953 to join the

United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...

. While stationed in

Alaska Alaska ( ; russian: Аляска, Alyaska; ale, Alax̂sxax̂; ; ems, Alas'kaaq; Yup'ik: ''Alaskaq''; tli, Anáaski) is a state located in the Western United States on the northwest extremity of North America. A semi-exclave of the U.S. ...

, McCarthy read books voraciously, which he claimed was the first time he had done so. He returned to UTK in 1957, where he published two stories, “Wake for Susan” and "A Drowning Incident" in the student literary magazine, ''The Phoenix'', writing under the name C. J. McCarthy, Jr. For these, he won the Ingram-Merrill Award for creative writing in 1959 and 1960. But in 1959, he dropped out of UTK for the final time and left for Chicago. For purposes of his writing career, McCarthy changed his first name from Charles to

Cormac Cormac is a masculine given name in the Irish and English languages. The name is ancient in the Irish language and is also seen in the rendered Old Norse as ''Kormákr''. Mac is Irish for "son", and can be used as either a prefix or a suffix. ...

to avoid confusion, and comparison, with ventriloquist Edgar Bergen's dummy

Charlie McCarthy Charlie McCarthy is Edgar Bergen's famed ventriloquist dummy partner. Charlie was part of Bergen's act as early as high school, and by 1930, was attired in his famous top hat, tuxedo, and monocle. The character was so well-known that his popularit ...

. Cormac had been a family nickname given to his father by his Irish aunts. Other sources say he changed his name to honor the Irish chieftain

Cormac MacCarthy Cormac Laidir MacCarthy, 9th Lord of Muskerry (1411–1494), was an Irish chieftain. He founded Kilcrea Friary and built Kilcrea Castle. Birth and origins Cormac was born in 1411, the eldest son of Teige MacCarthy. His father was the 6th ...

, who constructed

Blarney Castle Blarney Castle ( ga, Caisleán na Blarnan) is a medieval stronghold in Blarney, near Cork, Ireland. Though earlier fortifications were built on the same spot, the current keep was built by the MacCarthy of Muskerry dynasty, a cadet branch of th ...

. After marrying fellow student Lee Holleman in 1961, McCarthy "moved to a shack with no heat and running water in the foothills of the

Smoky Mountains The Great Smoky Mountains (, ''Equa Dutsusdu Dodalv'') are a mountain range rising along the Tennessee– North Carolina border in the southeastern United States. They are a subrange of the Appalachian Mountains, and form part of the Blue Ri ...

outside of Knoxville". There the couple had a son, Cullen, in 1962. When writer James Agee's childhood home was being demolished in Knoxville that year, McCarthy used the site's bricks to build fireplaces inside his Sevier County shack. While Lee cared for the baby and tended to the chores of the house, Cormac asked her to get a day job so he could focus on his novel writing. Dismayed with the situation, she moved to Wyoming, where she filed for divorce and landed her first job teaching.

Early writing career (1965–1991)

Random House Random House is an American book publisher and the largest general-interest paperback publisher in the world. The company has several independently managed subsidiaries around the world. It is part of Penguin Random House, which is owned by Germ ...

published McCarthy's first novel, ''

'', in 1965. He had finished the novel while working part-time at an auto-parts warehouse in Chicago and submitted the manuscript "blindly" to Albert Erskine of Random House. Erskine continued to edit McCarthy's work for the next 20 years. Upon its release, critics noted its similarity to the work of Faulkner and praised McCarthy's striking use of imagery. ''The Orchard Keeper'' won a 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. While living in the

French Quarter The French Quarter, also known as the , is the oldest neighborhood in the city of New Orleans. After New Orleans (french: La Nouvelle-Orléans) was founded in 1718 by Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne de Bienville, the city developed around the ("Old Sq ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

, McCarthy was expelled from a $40-a-month room for failing to pay his rent. When he traveled the country, McCarthy always carried a 100-watt bulb in his bag so he could read at night, no matter where he was sleeping. In the summer of 1965, using a Traveling Fellowship award from

The American Academy of Arts and Letters The American Academy of Arts and Letters is a 300-member honor society whose goal is to "foster, assist, and sustain excellence" in American literature, music, and art. Its fixed number membership is elected for lifetime appointments. Its headqu ...

, McCarthy shipped out aboard the liner ''Sylvania'' hoping to visit Ireland. On the ship, he met Englishwoman Anne DeLisle, who was working on the ship as a dancer and singer. In 1966, they were married in England. Also in 1966, he received a Rockefeller Foundation Grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, '' Outer Dark'' (1968). Afterward, he returned to the United States with his wife, where ''Outer Dark'' was published to generally favorable reviews. Cormac McCarthy (Outer Dark author portrait)

Cormac McCarthy (Outer Dark author portrait)

In 1969, the couple moved to

Louisville, Tennessee Louisville is a suburban town in Blount County, Tennessee, United States. Its population was 4,384 at the 2020 census and 2,439 at the 2010 census. It is included in the Knoxville, Tennessee Metropolitan Statistical Area. History The Louisville ...

, and purchased a dairy barn, which McCarthy renovated, doing the stonework himself. According to DeLisle, the couple lived in "total poverty", bathing in a lake. DeLisle claimed, "Someone would call up and offer him $2,000 to come speak at a university about his books. And he would tell them that everything he had to say was there on the page. So we would eat beans for another week." While living in the barn, he wrote his next book, ''

'' (1973). Like ''Outer Dark'' before it, ''Child of God'' was set in southern Appalachia. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the county seat, seat of El Paso County, Texas, El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau w ...

. In 1974, Richard Pearce of

PBS The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia. PBS is a publicly funded nonprofit organization and the most prominent provider of educat ...

contacted McCarthy and asked him to write the screenplay for an episode of '' Visions'', a television drama series. Beginning in early 1975, and armed with only "a few photographs in the footnotes to a 1928 biography of a famous pre-Civil War industrialist William Gregg as inspiration", he and McCarthy spent a year traveling the South to research the subject of industrialization there. McCarthy completed the screenplay in 1976 and the episode, titled '' The Gardener's Son'', aired on January 6, 1977. Numerous film festivals abroad screened it.McCarthy, Cormac. ''The Gardener's Son''. The

Ecco Press Ecco is a New York-based publishing imprint of HarperCollins. It was founded in 1971 by Daniel Halpern as an independent publishing company; Publishers Weekly described it as "one of America's best-known literary houses." In 1999 Ecco was acquire ...

, September 1, 1996. Retrieved December 6, 2010. Front and back book flaps. The episode was nominated for two primetime Emmy awards in 1977. In 1979, McCarthy published the semi-autobiographical '' Suttree'', which he had written over 20 years, based on his experiences in Knoxville on the

Tennessee River The Tennessee River is the largest tributary of the Ohio River. It is approximately long and is located in the southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. The river was once popularly known as the Cherokee River, among other name ...

Jerome Charyn Jerome Charyn (born May 13, 1937) is an American writer. With nearly 50 published works over a 50-year span, Charyn has a long-standing reputation as an inventive and prolific chronicler of real and imagined American life, writing in multiple ge ...

likened it to a doomed ''Huckleberry Finn''. In 1981, McCarthy was awarded a

worth $236,000.

Saul Bellow Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; 10 July 1915 – 5 April 2005) was a Canadian-born American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only w ...

Shelby Foote Shelby Dade Foote Jr. (November 17, 1916 – June 27, 2005) was an American writer, historian and journalist. Although he primarily viewed himself as a novelist, he is now best known for his authorship of '' The Civil War: A Narrative'', a three ...

, and others had recommended him to the organization. The grant enabled him to travel to the South-West, where he could research his next novel: '' Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West'' (1985). The book is well known for its violence, with ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

'' declaring it the "bloodiest book since the ''

Iliad The ''Iliad'' (; grc, Ἰλιάς, Iliás, ; "a poem about Ilium") is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is one of the oldest extant works of literature still widely read by modern audiences. As with the '' Odys ...

''". Although initially snubbed by many critics, the book has grown appreciably in stature in literary circles;

Harold Bloom Harold Bloom (July 11, 1930 – October 14, 2019) was an American literary critic and the Sterling Professor of Humanities at Yale University. In 2017, Bloom was described as "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking worl ...

called ''Blood Meridian'' "the greatest single book since Faulkner's ''

As I Lay Dying ''As I Lay Dying'' is a 1930 Southern Gothic novel by American author William Faulkner. Faulkner's fifth novel, it is consistently ranked among the best novels of 20th-century literature.The New Lifetime Reading Plan: The Classical Guide to Wor ...

''". In a 2006 poll of authors and publishers conducted by ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' to list the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century, ''Blood Meridian'' placed third, behind Toni Morrison's '' Beloved'' (1987) and

Don DeLillo Donald Richard DeLillo (born November 20, 1936) is an American novelist, short story writer, playwright, screenwriter and essayist. His works have covered subjects as diverse as television, nuclear war, sports, the complexities of language, perf ...

's ''

Underworld The underworld, also known as the netherworld or hell, is the supernatural world of the dead in various religious traditions and myths, located below the world of the living. Chthonic is the technical adjective for things of the underwor ...

'' (1997). Some have even suggested it is the Great American Novel. ''

Time Time is the continued sequence of existence and events that occurs in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequence events, ...

'' included it on their 2005 list of the 100 best English-language books published since 1923. At the time, McCarthy was living in a stone cottage behind an El Paso shopping center, which he described as "barely habitable". As of 1991, none of McCarthy's novels had sold more than 5,000 hardcover copies, and "for most of his career, he did not even have an agent". He was labelled the "best unknown novelist in America".

Success and acclaim (1992–2013)

After working with McCarthy for twenty years, Albert Erskine retired from Random House. McCarthy turned to Alfred A. Knopf, where he fell under the editorial advisement of Gary Fisketjon. As a final favor to Erskine, McCarthy agreed to his first interview ever, with Richard B. Woodward of ''The New York Times''. McCarthy finally received widespread recognition following the publication of '' All the Pretty Horses'' (1992), when it won the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It became a ''New York Times'' bestseller, selling 190,000 hardcover copies within six months. It was followed by '' The Crossing'' (1994) and '' Cities of the Plain'' (1998), completing the

. In the midst of this trilogy came ''

The Stonemason ''The Stonemason'' is a play in five acts by American writer Cormac McCarthy Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr., July 20, 1933) is an American writer who has written twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays and three short ...

'' (first performed in 1995), his second dramatic work. McCarthy originally conceived his next work, ''No Country for Old Men'' (2005), as a screenplay before turning it into a novel. Consequently, the novel has little description of setting and is composed largely of dialogue. A western set in the 1980s, ''No Country for Old Men'' was adapted by the

Coen brothers Joel Daniel Coen (born November 29, 1954) and Ethan Jesse Coen (born September 21, 1957),State of Minnesota. ''Minnesota Birth Index, 1935–2002''. Minnesota Department of Health. collectively known as the Coen brothers (), are American film ...

into a 2007 film of the same name, which won four

and more than 75 film awards globally. In the early 2000s, while sleeping at an El Paso motel with his son, McCarthy imagined the city in a hundred years: "fires up on the hill and everything being laid to waste". He wrote two pages covering the idea; four years later in Ireland he would expand the idea into his tenth novel, ''

''. It follows a lone father and his young son traveling through a post-apocalyptic America, hunted by cannibals. Many of the discussions between the two were verbatim conversations McCarthy had had with his son. Released in 2006, it won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. McCarthy did not accept the prize in person, instead sending

Sonny Mehta Ajai Singh "Sonny" Mehta (9 November 1942McFadden, Robert D. (31 December 2019) ''The New York Times''. – 30 December 2019) was an Indian editor and the editor-in-chief of Alfred A. Knopf and chairman of the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. ...

in his place.

John Hillcoat John Hillcoat (born 1960) is an Australian-Canadian film director, screenwriter, and music video director. Early life Hillcoat was born in Queensland, Australia, and was raised in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. As a child, his paintings were featur ...

directed the 2009 film adaptation, written by Joe Penhall, and starring Viggo Mortensen and

Kodi Smit-McPhee Kodi Smit-McPhee (born 13 June 1996) is an Australian actor. He gained recognition as a child actor for his leading roles in ''The Road'' (2009) and '' Let Me In'' (2010). In 2021, Smit-McPhee garnered critical acclaim for his performance as Pe ...

. Critics reviews were mostly favorable: Roger Ebert found it "powerful" but lacking "emotional feeling", Peter Bradshaw noted "a guarded change of emphasis", while Dan Jolin found it to be a "faithful adaptation" of the "devastating novel". The-road

McCarthy published the play '' The Sunset Limited'' in 2006. Critics noted it was unorthodox and may have had more in common with a novel, hence McCarthy's subtitle: "a novel in dramatic form". He later adapted it into a screenplay for a 2011 film, directed and executive produced by Tommy Lee Jones, who also starred opposite

Samuel L. Jackson Samuel Leroy Jackson (born December 21, 1948) is an American actor and producer. One of the most widely recognized actors of his generation, the films in which he has appeared have collectively grossed over $27 billion worldwide, making him ...

. Oprah Winfrey selected McCarthy's ''The Road'' as the April 2007 selection for her Book Club. As a result, McCarthy agreed to his first television interview, which aired on ''

The Oprah Winfrey Show ''The Oprah Winfrey Show'', often referred to as ''The Oprah Show'' or simply ''Oprah'', is an American daytime syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicago, Illinois. Produced ...

'' on June 5, 2007. The interview took place in the library of the

. McCarthy told Winfrey that he does not know any writers and much prefers the company of scientists. During the interview, he related several stories illustrating the degree of outright poverty he endured at times during his career as a writer. He also spoke about the experience of fathering a child at an advanced age, and how his son was the inspiration for ''The Road''. In 2012, McCarthy sold his original screenplay ''

The Counselor ''The Counselor'' (known as ''The Counsellor'' in countries that use British English) is a 2013 crime thriller film directed by Ridley Scott and written by Cormac McCarthy. It stars Michael Fassbender as the eponymous Counselor as well as P ...

'' to

Nick Wechsler Nick Wechsler may also refer to: * Nick Wechsler (actor) (born 1978), American actor * Nick Wechsler (film producer) (born 1949), American film producer {{Hndis, Wechsler, Nick ...

, Paula Mae Schwartz, and Steve Schwartz, who had previously produced the film adaptation of McCarthy's novel ''The Road''. Directed by Ridley Scott, production finished in 2012. It was released on October 25, 2013, to polarized critical reception. Mark Kermode of ''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...

'' found it "datedly naff";

Peter Travers Peter Joseph Travers (born ) is an American film critic, journalist, and television presenter. He reviews films for ABC News and previously served as a movie critic for ''People'' and ''Rolling Stone''. Travers also hosts the film interview prog ...

of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner, and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. It was first known for its ...

'' described it as "a droning meditation on capitalism"; however

Manohla Dargis Manohla June Dargis () is an American film critic. She is one of the chief film critics for ''The New York Times''. She is a five-time finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Career Before being a film critic for ''The New York Times'', ...

of ''The New York Times'' found it "terrifying" and "seductive".

Santa Fe Institute (2014–present)

McCarthy is a trustee for the

(SFI), a multidisciplinary research center devoted to the study of

complex adaptive systems A complex adaptive system is a system that is '' complex'' in that it is a dynamic network of interactions, but the behavior of the ensemble may not be predictable according to the behavior of the components. It is '' adaptive'' in that the indiv ...

. Unlike most members of the SFI, McCarthy does not have a scientific background. As

Murray Gell-Mann Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American physicist who received the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. He was the Robert Andrews Millikan Professor of Theoretical ...

explained, "There isn't any place like the Santa Fe Institute, and there isn't any writer like Cormac, so the two fit quite well together." From his work at the Santa Fe Institute, McCarthy published his first piece of nonfiction writing in his 50-year writing career. In the essay entitled "

" (2017), McCarthy analyzes a dream of

August Kekulé Friedrich August Kekulé, later Friedrich August Kekule von Stradonitz ( , ; 7 September 1829 – 13 July 1896), was a German organic chemist. From the 1850s until his death, Kekulé was one of the most prominent chemists in Europe, especially ...

's as a model of the

unconscious mind The unconscious mind (or the unconscious) consists of the processes in the mind which occur automatically and are not available to introspection and include thought processes, memories, interests, and motivations. Even though these processes exi ...

and the origins of language. He theorizes about the nature of the unconscious mind and its separation from human language. The unconscious, according to McCarthy, "is a machine for operating an animal" and "all animals have an unconscious." McCarthy postulates that language is a purely human cultural creation and not a biologically determined phenomenon. In 2015, McCarthy's next novel, '' The Passenger'', was announced at a multimedia event hosted in Santa Fe by the Lannan Foundation. The book was influenced by his time among scientists; it has been described by SFI biologist David Krakauer as "full-blown Cormac 3.0—a mathematical ndanalytical novel". In March 2022, ''The New York Times'' reported that ''The Passenger'' would be released on October 25, 2022, and a second companion novel, '' Stella Maris'', on November 22. ''Stella Maris'' will be McCarthy's first novel since '' Outer Dark'' to feature a female protagonist.

Writing approach and style

Syntax

McCarthy uses punctuation sparsely, even replacing most commas with "and" to create polysyndetons; it has been called "the most important word in McCarthy's lexicon". He told Oprah Winfrey that he prefers "simple declarative sentences" and that he uses capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, or a colon for setting off a list, but never semicolons, which he has labelled as "idiocy". He does not use quotation marks for dialogue and believes there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks". Erik Hage notes that McCarthy's dialogue often lacks attribution, but that "Somehow ... the reader remains oriented as to who is speaking." His attitude to punctuation dates to some editing work he did for a professor of English while enrolled at the University of Tennessee, when he stripped out much of the punctuation in the book being edited, which pleased the professor. McCarthy edited fellow Santa Fe Institute Fellow W. Brian Arthur's influential article "Increasing Returns and the New World of Business", published in the ''

Harvard Business Review ''Harvard Business Review'' (''HBR'') is a general management magazine published by Harvard Business Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of Harvard University. ''HBR'' is published six times a year and is headquartered in Brighton, Ma ...

'' in 1996, removing commas from the text. He has also done

copy-editing Copy editing (also known as copyediting and manuscript editing) is the process of revising written material ( copy) to improve readability and fitness, as well as ensuring that text is free of grammatical and factual errors. ''The Chicago Manual o ...

work for physicists Lawrence M. Krauss and Lisa Randall. Saul Bellow praised his "absolutely overpowering use of language, his life-giving and death-dealing sentences". Richard B. Woodward has described his writing as "reminiscent of early

Hemingway Ernest Miller Hemingway (July 21, 1899 – July 2, 1961) was an American novelist, short-story writer, and journalist. His economical and understated style—which he termed the iceberg theory—had a strong influence on 20th-century fi ...

". Unlike earlier works such as ''Suttree'' and ''Blood Meridian'', the majority of McCarthy's work after 1993 uses simple, restrained vocabulary.

Themes

McCarthy's novels often depict explicit violence. Many of his works have been characterized as nihilistic, particularly ''Blood Meridian''. Some academics dispute this, saying ''Blood Meridian'' is actually a

gnostic Gnosticism (from grc, γνωστικός, gnōstikós, , 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems which coalesced in the late 1st century AD among Jewish and early Christian sects. These various groups emphasized pe ...

tragedy. His later works have been characterized as highly moralistic.

Erik J. Wielenberg Erik Wielenberg (born March 11, 1972) is an author and professor of philosophy at DePauw University in Greencastle, Indiana. As an atheist, Wielenberg defends nontheistic moral realism.Anton Chigurh of ''No Country for Old Men'' is said to reflect the apprehension of the

post-9/11 The post-9/11 period is the time after the September 11 attacks, characterized by heightened suspicion of non-Americans in the United States, increased government efforts to address terrorism, and a more aggressive American foreign policy. Pol ...

era. Many of his works portray individuals in conflict with society and acting on instinct rather than on emotion or thought. Another theme throughout many of McCarthy's works is the ineptitude or inhumanity of those in authority and particularly in law enforcement. This is seen in ''Blood Meridian'' with the murder spree the

Glanton Gang John Joel Glanton (1819 – 23 April 1850) was an early settler of Arkansas, a Texas Ranger and noted soldier in the Mexican–American War, and the leader of a notorious gang of scalp-hunters in Northern Mexico and the Southwestern United States d ...

initiates because of the bounties, the "overwhelmed" law enforcement in ''No Country for Old Men'', and the corrupt police officers in ''All the Pretty Horses''. As a result, he has been labelled the "great pessimist of American literature".

Bilingual narrative practice

Cormac McCarthy is fluent in Spanish, having lived in Ibiza, Spain, in the 1960s and later residing in El Paso, Texas, and Santa Fe, New Mexico. Isabel Soto argues that after he learned the language, in his novels "Spanish and English modulate or permeate each other", as it is "an essential part of McCarthy's expressive discourse". Katherine Sugg observes that McCarthy's writing is "often considered a 'multicultural' and 'bilingual' narrative practice, particularly for its abundant use of untranslated Spanish dialogue". Jeffrey Herlihy-Mera observes: "John Grady Cole is a native speaker of Spanish. This is also the case of several other important characters in the Border Trilogy, including Billy Parhnam (sic), John Grady's mother (and possibly his grandfather and brothers), and perhaps Jimmy Blevins, each of whom are speakers of Spanish who were ostensibly born in the US political space into families with what are generally considered English-speaking surnames ... This is also the case of Judge Holden in ''Blood Meridian''."

Work ethic and process

McCarthy has dedicated himself to writing full time, choosing not to work other jobs to support his career. "I always knew that I didn't want to work", McCarthy has said. "You have to be dedicated, but it was my number-one priority." Early in his career, his decision not to work sometimes subjected him and his family to poverty. Nevertheless, according to scholar Steve Davis, McCarthy has an "incredible work ethic". He prefers to work on several projects simultaneously and said, for instance, that he had four drafts in progress in the mid-2000s and for several years devoted about two hours every day to each project. He is known to conduct exhaustive research on the historical settings and regional environments found in his fiction. He continually edits his own writing, sometimes revising a book over the course of years or decades before deeming it fit for publication. While his research and revision are meticulous, he does not outline his plots and instead views writing as a "

subconscious In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. Scholarly use of the term The word ''subconscious'' represents an anglicized version of the French ''subconscient'' as coined in 1889 by the psycho ...

process" which should be given space for spontaneous inspiration. Since 1958, McCarthy has written all of his literary work and correspondence with a mechanical

typewriter A typewriter is a mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an inked ribbon selectivel ...

. He originally used a

Royal Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ...

but went looking for a more lightweight machine ahead of a trip to Europe in the early 1960s. He bought a portable

Olivetti Lettera 32 The Olivetti company, an Italian manufacturer of computers, tablets, smartphones, printers and other such business products as calculators and fax machines, was founded as a typewriters manufacturer by Camillo Olivetti in 1908 in the Turin commune ...

for $50 at a Knoxville pawn shop and typed about five million words over the next five decades. He maintained it by simply "blowing out the dust with a service station hose". Book dealer Glenn Horowitz said the modest typewriter acquired "a sort of talismanic quality" through its connection to McCarthy's monumental fiction, "as if

Mount Rushmore Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (Lakota: ''Tȟuŋkášila Šákpe'', or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dakot ...

was carved with a Swiss Army knife". His Olivetti was auctioned in December 2009 at Christie's, with the auction house estimating it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000. It sold for $254,500, with proceeds donated to the Santa Fe Institute. McCarthy replaced it with an identical model, bought for him by his friend John Miller for $11 plus $19.95 for shipping.

Personal life and views

McCarthy is a teetotaler. According to Richard B. Woodward: "McCarthy doesn't drink anymore – he quit 16 years ago .e. in 1976in El Paso, with one of his young girlfriends – and ''Suttree'' reads like a farewell to that life. 'The friends I do have are simply those who quit drinking,' he says. 'If there is an occupational hazard to writing, it's drinking'." In the late 1990s, McCarthy moved to the Tesuque area of New Mexico, north of Santa Fe, with his third wife, Jennifer Winkley, and their son, John. McCarthy and Winkley divorced in 2006. In 2013, a Twitter account impersonating McCarthy (@CormacCMcCarthy) was created by Scottish writer Michael Crossan, quickly amassing several thousand followers and recognition by former site owner

Jack Dorsey Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American Internet entrepreneur and programmer who is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, Inc., as well as a co-founder and the CEO and chairperson of Block, Inc., the developer of the Squa ...

. Five hours after the account's creation, McCarthy's publisher confirmed that the account was fake and that McCarthy did not own a computer. In 2018, another account impersonating McCarthy (@CormacMcCrthy) was created. In 2021, it was briefly verified following a viral tweet, after which his agent confirmed that the account was fake. In 2016, a hoax spread on Twitter claiming that McCarthy had died, with ''

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgi ...

'' even repeating the information. The ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...

'' responded to the hoax with the headline, "Cormac McCarthy isn't dead. He's too tough to die."

Politics

McCarthy has not publicly revealed his political opinions. A resident of Santa Fe with a traditionalist disposition, he has expressed disapproval of the liberal-minded people and lifestyle there: "If you don't agree with them politically, you can't just agree to disagree—they think you're crazy." In the 1980s, McCarthy and

Edward Abbey Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author, essayist, and environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His best-known works include '' Desert S ...

considered covertly releasing wolves into southern Arizona to restore their decimated population.

Science and literature

In one of his few interviews, McCarthy revealed that he respects only authors who "deal with issues of life and death", citing

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

and Marcel Proust as examples of writers who do not. "I don't understand them ... To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange", he said. Regarding his own literary constraints when writing novels, McCarthy said he is "not a fan of some of the Latin American writers, magical realism. You know, it's hard enough to get people to believe what you're telling them without making it impossible. It has to be vaguely plausible." He has cited ''

Moby-Dick ''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is the sailor Ishmael's narrative of the obsessive quest of Ahab, captain of the whaling ship ''Pequod'', for revenge against Moby Dick, the giant whi ...

'' (1851) as his favorite novel. McCarthy has an aversion to other writers, preferring the company of scientists. He has voiced his admiration for scientific advances: "What physicists did in the 20th century was one of the extraordinary flowerings ever in the human enterprise." At MacArthur reunions, McCarthy has typically shunned his fellow writers to fraternize instead with scientists like physicist

and whale biologist

Roger Payne Roger Searle Payne (born January 29, 1935) is an American biologist and environmentalist famous for the 1967 discovery (with Scott McVay) of whale song among humpback whales. Payne later became an important figure in the worldwide campaign to e ...

. Of all of his interests, McCarthy stated, "Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list."

Legacy

In 2003, literary critic

named McCarthy as one of the four major living American novelists, alongside

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

, and Philip Roth. His 1994 book ''

The Western Canon ''The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages'' is a 1994 book about Western literature by the American literary critic Harold Bloom, in which the author defends the concept of the Western canon by discussing 26 writers whom he sees as ce ...

'' had listed ''Child of God'', ''Suttree'', and ''Blood Meridian'' among the works of contemporary literature he predicted would endure and become "

canonical The adjective canonical is applied in many contexts to mean "according to the canon" the standard, rule or primary source that is accepted as authoritative for the body of knowledge or literature in that context. In mathematics, "canonical examp ...

". Bloom reserved his highest praise for ''Blood Meridian'', which he called "the greatest single book since Faulkner's ''

''", and though he held less esteem for McCarthy's other novels he said that "to have written even one book so authentically strong and allusive, and capable of the perpetual reverberation that ''Blood Meridian'' possesses more than justifies him.... He has attained genius with that book." A comprehensive archive of McCarthy's personal papers is preserved at the

Wittliff Collections The Wittliff Collections, located on the seventh floor of the Albert B. Alkek Library at Texas State University, was founded by William D. Wittliff in 1987. The Wittliff Collections include the Southwestern Writers Collection and the Southwester ...

Texas State University Texas State University is a public research university in San Marcos, Texas. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has grown to the second largest university in the Greater Austin metropolitan area and the fifth largest university ...

, San Marcos, Texas. The McCarthy papers consists of 98 boxes (46 linear feet). The acquisition of the Cormac McCarthy Papers resulted from years of ongoing conversations between McCarthy and Southwestern Writers Collection founder, Bill Wittliff, who negotiated the proceedings. The Southwestern Writers Collection/Wittliff Collections also holds The Wolmer Collection of Cormac McCarthy, which consists of letters between McCarthy and bibliographer J. Howard Woolmer, and four other related collections.Archives, Critical History, Translation. (2020). In S. Frye (Ed.), ''Cormac McCarthy in Context'' (Literature in Context, pp. 271-342). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bibliography

Notes

References

External links

The Cormac McCarthy Society

– Cormac McCarthy Papers * *
Western American Literature Journal: Cormac McCarthy
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCarthy, Cormac Living people 1933 births American male novelists 20th-century American novelists 21st-century American novelists American crime fiction writers American horror novelists American male dramatists and playwrights American male screenwriters American speculative fiction writers Novelists from Texas Novelists from Tennessee Minimalist writers Screenwriters from New Mexico Screenwriters from Tennessee Screenwriters from Texas Screenwriters from Rhode Island Western (genre) writers Writers from Santa Fe, New Mexico Believer Book Award winners James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients MacArthur Fellows Maltese Falcon Award winners National Book Award winners Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners American people of Irish descent The New Yorker people People from El Paso, Texas People from Knoxville, Tennessee People from Tesuque, New Mexico Philosophical pessimists Santa Fe Institute people United States Air Force airmen 20th-century American male writers 21st-century American male writers