Cormac McCarthy (born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.; July 20, 1933 – June 13, 2023) was an American author who wrote 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 ...
,
post-apocalyptic
Apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction are genres 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; astronom ...
, and
Southern Gothic genres. His works often include graphic depictions of violence, and his writing style is characterised by a sparse use of punctuation and attribution. He is widely regarded as one of the great American novelists.
McCarthy was born in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...
, although he was raised primarily in
Tennessee
Tennessee (, ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. It borders Kentucky to the north, Virginia to the northeast, North Carolina t ...
. In 1951, he enrolled in the
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...
, but dropped out to join the
U.S. Air Force. 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 pu ...
, ''
The Orchard Keeper'', 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 enabled him to travel to the American Southwest, where he researched and wrote his fifth novel, ''
Blood Meridian'' (1985). Although it initially garnered a lukewarm critical and commercial reception, it has since been regarded as his ''
magnum opus'', with some labeling it the
Great American Novel
The "Great American Novel" (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is the term for a Western Canon, canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and Culture of the United States, character of the United States. The term was coined b ...
.
McCarthy first experienced widespread success with ''
All the Pretty Horses'' (1992), for which he received both the
National Book Award
The National Book Awards (NBA) 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. ...
and the
National Book Critics Circle Award. It was followed by ''
The Crossing'' (1994) and ''
Cities of the Plain'' (1998), completing ''
The Border Trilogy''. His 2005 novel ''
No Country for Old Men
''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin ...
'' received mixed reviews. His 2006 novel ''
The Road'' won the 2007
Pulitzer Prize for Fiction
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
and the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction.
Many of McCarthy's works have been adapted into film. The 2007 film adaptation of ''
No Country for Old Men
''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin ...
'' was a critical and commercial success, winning four
Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
, including
Best Picture. The films ''
All the Pretty Horses'', ''
The Road'', and ''
Child of God'' were also adapted from his works of the same names, and ''Outer Dark'' was turned into a 15-minute short. McCarthy had a play adapted into a 2011 film,
''The Sunset Limited''.
McCarthy worked 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, inc ...
, a multidisciplinary research center, where he published the essay "
The Kekulé Problem" (2017), which explores the
human unconscious and the
origin of language
The origin of language, its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study the origins of language draw inferences from evidence such as the fossil record, archaeolog ...
. He was elected to the
American Philosophical Society
The American Philosophical Society (APS) is an American scholarly organization and learned society founded in 1743 in Philadelphia that promotes knowledge in the humanities and natural sciences through research, professional meetings, publicat ...
in 2012. His final novels, ''
The Passenger'' and ''
Stella Maris'', were published on October 25, 2022, and December 6, 2022, respectively.
Life
Early life
Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.
was born in
Providence, Rhode Island
Providence () is the List of capitals in the United States, capital and List of municipalities in Rhode Island, most populous city of the U.S. state of Rhode Island. The county seat of Providence County, Rhode Island, Providence County, it is o ...
, on July 20, 1933, one of six children of Gladys Christina McGrail and Charles Joseph McCarthy.
His family was
Irish Catholic. In 1937, the family relocated to
Knoxville, Tennessee
Knoxville is a city in Knox County, Tennessee, United States, and its county seat. It is located on the Tennessee River and had a population of 190,740 at the 2020 United States census. It is the largest city in the East Tennessee Grand Division ...
, 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
South Knoxville is the section of Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, that lies south of the Tennessee River. It is concentrated along Chapman Highway (U.S. Route 441 in Tennessee, US 441), Alcoa Highway (U.S. Route 129 in Tennessee, US 129), Ma ...
.
McCarthy later said, "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 was later depicted as J-Bone in ''Suttree''.
McCarthy attended St. Mary's Parochial School and
Knoxville Catholic High School, and was an
altar boy 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
University of Tennessee
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (or The University of Tennessee; UT; UT Knoxville; or colloquially UTK or Tennessee) is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Knoxville, Tennessee, United St ...
, studying
liberal arts
Liberal arts education () is a traditional academic course in Western higher education. ''Liberal arts'' takes the term ''skill, art'' in the sense of a learned skill rather than specifically the fine arts. ''Liberal arts education'' can refe ...
. He became interested in writing after a professor asked him to repunctuate a collection of eighteenth-century essays for inclusion in a textbook.
McCarthy left college in 1953 to join the
U.S. Air Force. While stationed in
Alaska
Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...
, McCarthy read books voraciously, which he said was the first time he had done so.
He returned to the University of Tennessee in 1957, where he majored in English and 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. In 1959, McCarthy dropped out of college and left for Chicago.
For the purpose of his writing career, McCarthy changed his first name from Charles to
Cormac to avoid confusion, and comparison, with ventriloquist
Edgar Bergen's dummy
Charlie McCarthy.
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, who constructed
Blarney Castle.
After marrying fellow student Lee Holleman in 1961, McCarthy moved to what Lee's obituary calls "a shack with no heat and running water in the foothills of the
Smoky Mountains 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. Lee moved to Wyoming shortly after, where she filed for divorce from McCarthy.
Early writing career (1965–1991)

In 1965,
Random House
Random House is an imprint and publishing group of Penguin Random House. Founded in 1927 by businessmen Bennett Cerf and Donald Klopfer as an imprint of Modern Library, it quickly overtook Modern Library as the parent imprint. Over the foll ...
published McCarthy's first novel, ''
The Orchard Keeper'' (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 in
New Orleans
New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
, McCarthy was evicted 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, 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
The Rockefeller Foundation is an American private foundation and philanthropic medical research and arts funding organization based at 420 Fifth Avenue, New York City. The foundation was created by Standard Oil magnate John D. Rockefeller (" ...
grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in
Ibiza
Ibiza (; ; ; #Names and pronunciation, see below) or Iviza is a Spanish island in the Mediterranean Sea off the eastern coast of the Iberian Peninsula. It is 150 kilometres (93 miles) from the city of Valencia. It is the third largest of th ...
, 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.
In 1969, the couple moved to
Louisville, Tennessee, 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, '' Child of God'' (1973). Like ''Outer Dark'' before it, ''Child of God'' was set in southern Appalachia
Appalachia ( ) is a geographic region located in the Appalachian Mountains#Regions, central and southern sections of the Appalachian Mountains in the east of North America. In the north, its boundaries stretch from the western Catskill Mountai ...
. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to El Paso, Texas
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
.[
]
In 1974, Richard Pearce of PBS 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", McCarthy and Pearce 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. The episode was nominated for two Primetime Emmy awards in 1977.
In 1976, when McCarthy was 42, he met then-16-year-old Finnish-American Augusta Britt at a motel in Arizona. Despite their age difference, the two hit it off immediately, and he drew upon their experiences for '' Suttree'', his work-in-progress at the time. By the following year, in 1977, when he was 43, but she was still 17, on a shared trip to Mexico, they had progressed to a physical relationship. They remained friends until his death.
In 1979, McCarthy published his semiautobiographical '' Suttree'', which he had written over 20 years before, based on his experiences in Knoxville on the Tennessee River
The Tennessee River is a long river located in the Southern United States, southeastern United States in the Tennessee Valley. Flowing through the states of Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, it begins at the confluence of Fren ...
. Jerome Charyn likened it to a doomed ''Huckleberry Finn'', noting how the Yew tree of the author's sprawling Tennessee garden was inspiration for the "christening of what became the principal character's name."
In 1981, McCarthy was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship worth $236,000. Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
, Shelby Foote, and others had recommended him to the organization. The grant enabled him to travel the American Southwest to research his next novel, '' Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West'' (1985). The book is violent, with ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'' declaring it the "bloodiest book since the ''Iliad
The ''Iliad'' (; , ; ) 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 ''Odyssey'', the poem is divided into 24 books and ...
''.[ Although 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 called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...
called ''Blood Meridian'' "the greatest single book since Faulkner's '' As I Lay Dying''". 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 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. The magazi ...
'' to list the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century, ''Blood Meridian'' placed third, behind Toni Morrison
Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist and editor. Her first novel, ''The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically accl ...
'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 consumerism, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, televi ...
'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 underworld.
...
'' (1997). Some have even suggested it is the Great American Novel
The "Great American Novel" (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is the term for a Western Canon, canonical novel that generally embodies and examines the essence and Culture of the United States, character of the United States. The term was coined b ...
. ''Time
Time is the continuous progression of existence that occurs in an apparently irreversible process, irreversible succession from the past, through the present, and into the future. It is a component quantity of various measurements used to sequ ...
'' 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
El Paso (; ; or ) is a city in and the county seat of El Paso County, Texas, United States. The 2020 United States census, 2020 population of the city from the United States Census Bureau, U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the List of ...
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 labeled the "best unknown novelist in America".[
]
Success and acclaim (1992–2013)
After working with McCarthy for twenty years, Albert Erskine retired from Random House in 1992. 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 Border Trilogy.
In the midst of this trilogy came '' The Stonemason'' (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 Coen and Ethan Coen, together known as the Coen brothers (), are an American filmmaking duo. Their films span many genres and styles, which they frequently subvert or parody. Among their most acclaimed works are '' Blood Simple'' (198 ...
into a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards
The Academy Awards, commonly known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit in film. They are presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) in the United States in recognition of excellence in ...
and more than 75 film awards globally.[
In the early 2000s while staying at an El Paso motel with his young son, McCarthy looked out the window late one night and imagined what the city might look like in fifty or one hundred years and saw: "fires up on the hill and everything being laid to waste".] He wrote two pages covering the idea; four years later in Ireland he expanded the idea into his tenth novel, '' The Road''. 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
The Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are annually awarded for Letters, Drama, and Music. It recognizes distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life, published during ...
. McCarthy did not accept the prize in person, instead sending Sonny Mehta in his place. John Hillcoat directed the 2009 film adaptation
A film adaptation transfers the details or story of an existing source text, such as a novel, into a feature film. This transfer can involve adapting most details of the source text closely, including characters or plot points, or the original sou ...
, written by Joe Penhall, and starring Viggo Mortensen
Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. (; born October 20, 1958) is an American actor and filmmaker. He has received nominations for three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards, and four Golden Globe Awards.
Mortensen made his film debut with a small role in ...
and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Critics' reviews were mostly favorable: Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...
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".
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.
Oprah Winfrey
Oprah Gail Winfrey (; born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American television presenter, talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and media proprietor. She is best known for her talk show, ''The Oprah Winfrey Show' ...
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'' is an American first-run syndicated talk show that was hosted by Oprah Winfrey. The show ran for twenty-five seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in which it broadcast 4,561 episodes. The show was taped i ...
'' on June 5, 2007. The interview took place in the library of 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, inc ...
. McCarthy told Winfrey that he did not know any writers and much preferred 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'' to Nick Wechsler, Paula Mae Schwartz, and Steve Schwartz, who had previously produced the film adaptation of McCarthy's novel ''The Road''. Directed by Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November 1937) is an English film director and producer. He directs films in the Science fiction film, science fiction, Crime film, crime, and historical drama, historical epic genres, with an atmospheric and highly co ...
, with the production finished in 2012, the film 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 Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
'' found it "datedly naff", and Peter Travers
Peter Joseph Travers (born June 27, 1943) 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 i ...
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.
The magazine was first known fo ...
'' described it as "a droning meditation on capitalism". However, Manohla Dargis of ''The New York Times'' found it "terrifying" and "seductive".
Santa Fe Institute (2014–2023)
McCarthy was a trustee for 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, inc ...
(SFI), a multidisciplinary research center devoted to the study of complex adaptive systems. Unlike most members of the SFI, McCarthy did not have a scientific background. As Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...
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 " The Kekulé Problem" (2017), McCarthy analyzes a dream of August Kekulé's as a model of the unconscious mind
In psychoanalysis and other psychological theories, the unconscious mind (or the unconscious) is the part of the psyche that is not available to introspection. Although these processes exist beneath the surface of conscious awareness, they are t ...
and the origins of language
Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to:
Arts, entertainment, and media
Comics and manga
* Origin (comics), ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002
* The Origin (Buffy comic), ''The Origin'' (Bu ...
. 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 multimedium 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. The latter was McCarthy's first novel since '' Outer Dark'' to feature a female protagonist.
At the time of his death, McCarthy was listed as an executive producer on a film adaption of ''Blood Meridian'', to be directed by John Hillcoat, who previously directed the film adaptation of ''The Road.'' In a 2024 interview, Hillcoat said he and McCarthy spent extended time discussing the film, which the author once volunteered to write and envisioned as a "Faustian tale, the journey of the Judge trying to win the soul of the kid, and consume everything in his path." McCarthy had rejected a miniseries proposal, finding television lacks a "kind of grandeur about it, an element of scale."
Writing approach and style
Syntax
McCarthy used 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 preferred "simple declarative sentences" and that he used capital letters, periods, an occasional comma, or a colon for setting off a list, but never semicolons, which he labeled as "idiocy". He did not use quotation marks for dialogue and believed 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 dated to some editing work he did for a professor of English while enrolled at the University of Tennessee; 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 not-for-profit, independent corporation that is an affiliate of Harvard Business School. ''HBR'' is published six times a year ...
'' in 1996, removing commas from the text. He also copy edited work for physicists Lawrence M. Krauss and Lisa Randall.
Saul Bellow
Saul Bellow (born Solomon Bellows; June 10, 1915April 5, 2005) was a Canadian-American writer. For his literary work, Bellow was awarded the Pulitzer Prize, the 1976 Nobel Prize in Literature, and the National Medal of Arts. He is the only write ...
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". 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 Ancient Greek: , romanized: ''gnōstikós'', Koine Greek: �nostiˈkos 'having knowledge') is a collection of religious ideas and systems that coalesced in the late 1st century AD among early Christian sects. These diverse g ...
tragedy. His later works have been characterized as highly moralistic. Erik J. Wielenberg argues that ''The Road'' depicts morality as secular and originating from individuals, such as the father, and separate from God.
The bleak outlook of the future, and the inhuman foreign antagonist Anton Chigurh of ''No Country for Old Men
''No Country for Old Men'' is a 2007 American neo-Western crime thriller film written, directed, produced and edited by Joel and Ethan Coen, based on Cormac McCarthy's 2005 novel. Starring Tommy Lee Jones, Javier Bardem, and Josh Brolin ...
'', is said to reflect the apprehension of the post-9/11 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 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 labeled the "great pessimist of American literature".
Bilingual narrative practice
McCarthy was 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, "Spanish and English modulate or permeate each other" in his novels, as it was "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 , 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 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 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 had an "incredible work ethic
Work ethic is a belief that work and diligence have a moral benefit and an inherent ability, virtue or value to strengthen character and individual abilities. Desire or determination to work serves as the foundation for values centered on the i ...
". He preferred 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 was known to conduct exhaustive research on the historical settings and regional environments found in his fiction. He edited 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 were meticulous, he did not outline his plots and instead viewed writing as a "subconscious
In psychology, the subconscious is the part of the mind that is not currently of focal awareness. The term was already popularized in the early 20th century in areas ranging from psychology, religion and spirituality. The concept was heavily popu ...
process" which should be given space for spontaneous inspiration.
After 1958, McCarthy wrote all of his literary work and correspondence with a mechanical typewriter
A typewriter is a Machine, mechanical or electromechanical machine for typing characters. Typically, a typewriter has an array of Button (control), keys, and each one causes a different single character to be produced on paper by striking an i ...
. 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 or Royalty (disambiguation), royalty
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Ill ...
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 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
The Mount Rushmore National Memorial is a National Memorial (United States), national memorial centered on a colossal sculpture carved into the granite face of Mount Rushmore (, or Six Grandfathers) in the Black Hills near Keystone, South Dak ...
was carved with a Swiss Army knife". His Olivetti was auctioned in December 2009 at Christie's
Christie's is a British auction house founded in 1766 by James Christie (auctioneer), James Christie. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, and it has additional salerooms in New York, Paris, Hong Kong, Milan, Geneva, Shan ...
, 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 was 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'." However, his long-time friend Augusta Britt claimed that he had resumed drinking near the end of his life.
In the 1980s, McCarthy and Edward Abbey
Edward Paul Abbey (January 29, 1927 – March 14, 1989) was an American author and essayist noted for his advocacy of environmental issues, criticism of public land policies, and anarchist political views. His best-known works include the nov ...
considered covertly releasing wolves into southern Arizona to restore their decimated population.
In the late 1990s, McCarthy moved to Tesuque, New Mexico, north of Santa Fe, with his third wife, Jennifer Winkley, and their son, John. McCarthy and Winkley divorced in 2006.
In 2013, Scottish writer Michael Crossan created a Twitter account impersonating McCarthy, quickly amassing several thousand followers and recognition by former site owner Jack Dorsey
Jack Patrick Dorsey (born November 19, 1976) is an American businessperson, who is a co-founder of Twitter, Inc. and its CEO during 2007–2008 and 2015–2021, as well as co-founder, principal executive officer and chairman of Block, Inc. (deve ...
. 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 was created. In 2021, it was briefly marked verified following a viral tweet, after which his agent confirmed that the account was again a fake.
In 2016, a hoax
A hoax (plural: hoaxes) is a widely publicised falsehood created to deceive its audience with false and often astonishing information, with the either malicious or humorous intent of causing shock and interest in as many people as possible.
S ...
spread on Twitter claiming that McCarthy had died, with ''USA Today
''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...
'' even repeating the information. The ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'' responded to the hoax with the headline, "Cormac McCarthy isn't dead. He's too tough to die."
In 2024, '' Vanity Fair'' published an article about McCarthy's romantic relationship with Augusta Britt, whom he met when he was forty-two and she was sixteen. The article claims that he took her to Mexico with a forged birth certificate and began having sex with her when she was seventeen. Britt has confirmed this account but denied that the relationship was predatory or abusive.
Politics
McCarthy did not publicly reveal his political opinions. A resident of Santa Fe with a traditionalist disposition, he once expressed disapproval of the city and the people there: "If you don't agree with them politically, you can't just agree to disagree—they think you're crazy." Academic David Holloway writes that "McCarthy's writing can be read as either liberal or conservative, or as both simultaneously, depending on the politics that readers themselves bring with them to the act of reading the work".
Science and literature
In one of his few interviews, McCarthy revealed that he respected 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
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust ( ; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, literary critic, and essayist who wrote the novel (in French – translated in English as ''Remembrance of Things Past'' and more r ...
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 was "not a fan of some of the Latin American writers, magical realism
Magical realism, magic realism, or marvelous realism is a style or genre of fiction and art that presents a realistic view of the world while incorporating magical elements, often blurring the lines between speculation and reality. ''Magical rea ...
. 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." ''Moby-Dick
''Moby-Dick; or, The Whale'' is an 1851 Epic (genre), epic novel by American writer Herman Melville. The book is centered on the sailor Ishmael (Moby-Dick), Ishmael's narrative of the maniacal quest of Captain Ahab, Ahab, captain of the whaler ...
'' (1851) was his favorite novel. Along with ''Moby-Dick'', McCarthy regarded '' The Brothers Karamazov'' (1880), ''Ulysses'' (1922), and '' The Sound and the Fury'' (1929) as "great" novels.
Socially, McCarthy had an aversion to other writers, preferring the company of scientists. He 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 shunned his fellow writers to fraternize instead with scientists like physicist Murray Gell-Mann
Murray Gell-Mann (; September 15, 1929 – May 24, 2019) was an American theoretical physicist who played a preeminent role in the development of the theory of elementary particles. Gell-Mann introduced the concept of quarks as the funda ...
and whale biologist Roger Payne. Of all of his interests, McCarthy stated, "Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list."
Death
McCarthy died at his home in Santa Fe on June 13, 2023, at the age of 89. Stephen King
Stephen Edwin King (born September 21, 1947) is an American author. Dubbed the "King of Horror", he is widely known for his horror novels and has also explored other genres, among them Thriller (genre), suspense, crime fiction, crime, scienc ...
said McCarthy was "maybe the greatest American novelist of my time ... He was full of years and created a fine body of work, but I still mourn his passing."
Legacy
In 2003, literary critic 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 called "probably the most famous literary critic in the English-speaking world". Af ...
named McCarthy as one of the four major living American novelists, alongside 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 consumerism, nuclear war, the complexities of language, art, televi ...
, 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, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), th ...
, and Philip Roth. Bloom's 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 c ...
'' had listed ''Child of God'', ''Suttree'', and ''Blood Meridian'' among the works of contemporary literature he predicted would endure and become " canonical". Bloom reserved his highest praise for ''Blood Meridian'', which he called "the greatest single book since Faulkner's '' As I Lay Dying''", 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, Texas State University
Texas State University (TXST) is a public university, public research university with its main campus in San Marcos, Texas, United States, and another campus in Round Rock, Texas, Round Rock. Since its establishment in 1899, the university has ...
, 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 Woolmer 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
Novels
Notes
References
Further reading
*
*
*
Updated version
published October 26, 2011.)
*
* Lewis, Brett Daniel. ''Word Made Flesh: Biblicality in Cormac McCarthy’s Appalachian Novels.'' The University of Memphis, doctoral dissertation. 2023.
* Thornhill, Christopher John. ''Trying the Stuff of Creation: Biblicism, Tragedy, and Romance in the Fiction of Cormac McCarthy.'' unpublished thesis: University of Nottingham (2016).
* Laug, Katja. ''Mementoes of the broken body: Cormac McCarthy’s aesthetic politics.'' PhD diss., University of Warwick, 2019.
External links
*
*
The Cormac McCarthy Society
– Cormac McCarthy Papers
*
*
Western American Literature Journal: Cormac McCarthy
Couldn't Care Less. Cormac McCarthy in conversation with David Krakauer
{{DEFAULTSORT:McCarthy, Cormac
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