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 i ...

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 Bay ...

, 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 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 ...

. 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 ...

, '' 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 ''Outer Dark'' is the second novel by American writer Cormac McCarthy, published in 1968. The time and setting are nebulous, but can be assumed to be somewhere in Appalachia, sometime around the turn of the twentieth century. The novel tells of ...

'' (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'' (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 The Great American Novel (sometimes abbreviated as GAN) is a Western Canon, canonical novel that is thought to embody the essence of United States, America, generally written by an American and dealing in some way with the question of America' ...

. 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 N ...

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. His 2005 novel '' No Country for Old Men'' 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 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, U ...

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'', '' The Road'', and '' Child of God'' 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'' first ran the article online on Ap ...

" (2017), which explores the human unconscious and the

origin of language The origin of language (spoken and signed, as well as language-related technological systems such as writing), its relationship with human evolution, and its consequences have been subjects of study for centuries. Scholars wishing to study th ...

. 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 communi ...

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 Irish Catholics are an ethnoreligious group native to Ireland whose members are both Catholic and Irish. They have a large diaspora, which includes over 36 million American citizens and over 14 million British citizens (a quarter of the Briti ...

. 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 Carolina ...

. The family first lived on Noelton Drive in the upscale

Sequoyah Hills Sequoyah Hills is a neighborhood in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States, named for the Cherokee scholar Sequoyah (c. 1767–1843), inventor of the Cherokee alphabet.

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 (US 441), Alcoa Highway (US 129), Maryville Pike ( SR 33), Sevierville Pike, and adjacent roads ...

. 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, and was an

altar boy An altar server is a laity, 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 t ...

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 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 S ...

. 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 to avoid confusion, and comparison, with ventriloquist

Edgar Bergen Edgar John Bergen (born Edgar John Berggren; February 16, 1903 – September 30, 1978) was an American ventriloquist, actor, comedian, vaudevillian and radio performer, best known for his proficiency in ventriloquism and his characters C ...

'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 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 t ...

. 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 R ...

outside of Knoxville". There the couple had a son, Cullen, in 1962. When writer

James Agee James Rufus Agee ( ; November 27, 1909 – May 16, 1955) was an American novelist, journalist, poet, screenwriter and film critic. In the 1940s, writing for ''Time Magazine'', he was one of the most influential film critics in the United States. ...

'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 Ger ...

published McCarthy's first novel, '' The Orchard Keeper'', 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 The William Faulkner Foundation (1960-1970) was a charitable organization founded by the novelist William Faulkner in 1960 to support various charitable causes, all educational or literary in nature. The foundation The foundation programs include ...

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 S ...

New Orleans New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans

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 second-oldest major philanthropic institution in America, after the Ca ...

Grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, ''

'' (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, 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 cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Newfoundland and Labrador, ...

. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to

El Paso, Texas El Paso (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the ...

. 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", 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 ''The Gardener’s Son'' is a screenplay by American novelist Cormac McCarthy. It is the first published screenplay written by McCarthy.Davies, Adam Lee"Brace yourself, more Cormac McCarthy adaptations are coming down the road" The Guardian, Janu ...

'', aired on January 6, 1977. Numerous film festivals abroad screened it.McCarthy, Cormac. ''The Gardener's Son''. The Ecco Press, 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 names ...

. Jerome Charyn 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 ...

'' 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''". 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 Chloe Anthony Wofford Morrison (born Chloe Ardelia Wofford; February 18, 1931 – August 5, 2019), known as Toni Morrison, was an American novelist. Her first novel, '' The Bluest Eye'', was published in 1970. The critically acclaimed '' S ...

'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 underworld ...

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

. ''

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, t ...

'' 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 (; "the pass") is a city in and the seat of El Paso County in the western corner of the U.S. state of Texas. The 2020 population of the city from the U.S. Census Bureau was 678,815, making it the 23rd-largest city in the U.S., the ...

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 Gary Fisketjon (born 1954) was an Editor and vice-president of Knopf Publishing until his dismissal in May 2019. also accesherevia Wayback Machine Fisketjon created the Vintage Contemporaries line of paperbacks at Random House. He was the editorial ...

. As a final favor to Erskine, McCarthy agreed to his first interview ever, with

Richard B. Woodward Richard B. Woodward has been an arts critic in New York since 1985. His contributions have appeared in ''The New York Times''. Alongside ''New York Times'', he also writes for ''The Wall Street Journal''. His reviews and articles have appeared in nu ...

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 ''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 shor ...

'' (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, '' 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

. McCarthy did not accept the prize in person, instead sending Sonny Mehta in his place. John Hillcoat directed the 2009 film adaptation, written by

Joe Penhall Joe Scott Penhall (born 1967) is an English-Australian playwright and screenwriter, best known for his award-winning stage play '' Blue/Orange'', the award-winning West End musical ''Sunny Afternoon'' and creating the Netflix original series ' ...

, and starring

Viggo Mortensen Viggo Peter Mortensen Jr. R (; born October 20, 1958) is an American actor, writer, director, producer, musician, and multimedia artist. Born and raised in the State of New York to a Danish father and American mother, he also lived in Argenti ...

and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Critics reviews were mostly favorable:

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

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 ''The Sunset Limited'' is a play by American writer Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy's second published play, it was first produced by the Steppenwolf Theatre in Chicago on May 18, 2006, and it traveled to New York City later that same year. The play ...

'' 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 Tommy Lee Jones (born September 15, 1946) is an American actor and film director. He has received four Academy Award nominations, winning Best Supporting Actor for his performance as U.S. Marshal Samuel Gerard in the 1993 thriller film '' T ...

, who also starred opposite Samuel L. Jackson. 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 broadcast syndication, syndicated talk show that aired nationally for 25 seasons from September 8, 1986, to May 25, 2011, in Chicag ...

'' 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'' 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 a British film director and producer. Directing, among others, science fiction films, his work is known for its atmospheric and highly concentrated visual style. Scott has received many accolades th ...

, 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 A newspaper is a periodical publication containing written information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background. Newspapers can cover a wide ...

'' 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 co ...

'' 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 indi ...

. Unlike most members of the SFI, McCarthy does not have a scientific background. As Murray Gell-Mann 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'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 exist ...

and the

origins of language Origin(s) or The Origin may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Comics and manga * ''Origin'' (comics), a Wolverine comic book mini-series published by Marvel Comics in 2002 * ''The Origin'' (Buffy comic), a 1999 ''Buffy the Vampire Sl ...

. 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 ''

'' to feature a female protagonist.

Writing approach and style

Syntax

McCarthy uses punctuation sparsely, even replacing most commas with "and" to create

polysyndeton Polysyndeton (from Ancient Greek πολύ ''poly'', meaning "many", and συνδετόν ''syndeton'', meaning "bound together with".) is the deliberate insertion of conjunctions into a sentence for the purpose of "slow ngup the rhythm of the ...

s; 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 work for physicists

Lawrence M. Krauss Lawrence Maxwell Krauss (born May 27, 1954) is an American theoretical physicist and cosmologist who previously taught at Arizona State University, Yale University, and Case Western Reserve University. He founded ASU's Origins Project, now cal ...

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 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'' 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 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 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. It is a set of values centered on importance of work and manifested by determination ...

". 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 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 selective ...

. 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 co ...

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 Dako ...

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. Its main premises are on King Street, St James's in London, at Rockefeller Center in New York City and at Alexandra House in Hong Kong. It is owned by Groupe Artémis, t ...

, 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 Tesuque ( Tewa: Tetsʼúgéh Ówîngeh / Tetsugé Oweengé ) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Santa Fe County, New Mexico, United States. It is part of the Santa Fe, New Mexico, Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 909 at the 2 ...

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. 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 Verified is a United Nations project to improve access to accurate information. In the project the United Nations seeks to organize a network of millions of online volunteers to curate and fact check information online. Verified has held a socia ...

following a viral tweet, after which his agent confirmed that the account was fake. In 2016, a

hoax A hoax is a widely publicized falsehood so fashioned as to invite reflexive, unthinking acceptance by the greatest number of people of the most varied social identities and of the highest possible social pretensions to gull its victims into pu ...

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, Virg ...

'' 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 ...

'' 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 Americans, American author, essayist, and anarchist, environmental activist noted for his advocacy of environmentalism, environmental issues and criticism of public land policies. His ...

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 th ...

and

Marcel Proust Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust (; ; 10 July 1871 – 18 November 1922) was a French novelist, critic, and essayist who wrote the monumental novel '' In Search of Lost Time'' (''À la recherche du temps perdu''; with the previous En ...

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 Magical is the adjective for magic. It may also refer to: * Magical (horse) (foaled 2015), Irish Thoroughbred racehorse * "Magical" (song), released in 1985 by John Parr * '' Magical: Disney's New Nighttime Spectacular of Magical Celebrations'', ...

. 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 white ...

'' (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 Murray Gell-Mann and whale biologist Roger Payne. 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, Literary genre, genres and Theme (narrative), them ...

, and

Philip Roth Philip Milton Roth (March 19, 1933 – May 22, 2018) was an American novelist and short story writer. Roth's fiction—often set in his birthplace of Newark, New Jersey—is known for its intensely autobiographical character, for philosophicall ...

. His 1994 book '' The Western Canon'' 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 '' 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 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 universit ...

, 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

Life

Early life

Early writing career (1965–1991)

Success and acclaim (1992–2013)

Santa Fe Institute (2014–present)

Writing approach and style

Syntax

Themes

Bilingual narrative practice

Work ethic and process

Personal life and views

Politics

Science and literature

Legacy

Bibliography

Notes

References

Further reading

External links