Acclaimed American novelist Cormac McCarthy dies at 89

Cormac McCarthy, whose nihilistic and violent stories of America’s frontier and post-apocalyptic worlds garnered awards, film adaptations and sleepless nights for his captivated and horrified readers, died Tuesday at the age of 89.

McCarthy, arguably the greatest American writer since Ernest Hemingway or William Faulkner, to whom he was sometimes compared, died of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, according to a statement from Penguin Random House, citing his son. . John McCarthy.

Little known for the first 60 years of his life, McCarthy rose to fame after the rave reviews of 1992’s All the Pretty Horses, the first of his The Border Trilogy.

That book was eventually made into a movie, as were 2005’s No Country for Old Men and 2006’s Pulitzer Prize-winning The Road.

But McCarthy was never seen on the red carpet. An intensely private man, he almost never gave interviews. He granted a rare exception to Oprah Winfrey in 2007, telling her: “I don’t think (interviews) are good for your head. If you spend a lot of time thinking about how to write a book, you probably shouldn’t be thinking about it, you probably should be doing it.

McCarthy wrote in a spare, distinctive style that eschewed grammatical rules but relentlessly drew the reader into his unforgiving universe of blood and dust.

“He stood at the window of the empty cafe and watched the activities in the square and said that it was good that God guarded the truths of young people’s lives when they were just starting out or else they would not have the heart to start. everyone,” he wrote in typical All the Pretty Horses fashion.

Cormac McCarthy, perhaps the greatest American novelist of my time, has passed away at the age of 89. He was full of years and created excellent work, but I still mourn his passing.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 13, 2023

Early success eluded McCarthy

Born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr on July 20, 1933 in Providence, Rhode Island, McCarthy was one of six children born to an Irish Catholic family. He later changed to using the old Irish name of Cormac.

His father was a lawyer and he grew up in Tennessee in relative comfort. But Central America was not for him.

“I felt from the beginning that I was not going to be a respectable citizen. I hated school from the day I stepped foot in it,” he told the New York Times in another rare interview in 1992.

He served in the Air Force in the 1950s and was married twice before the 1960s ended, first to Lee Holleman, whom he met in college and with whom he had a son. He later married English singer Anne DeLisle, from whom he separated in 1976.

“Keep a little fire going; however small it may be, however hidden it may be.”
—Cormac McCarthy, The Path

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy died today of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was eighty-nine years old. pic.twitter.com/5Xl9MH5Nx2

—Alfred A. Knopf (@AAKnopf) June 13, 2023

After a brief stint in Europe, he returned to Tennessee to settle near Knoxville, then moved to El Paso, Texas, and then Santa Fe.

His first book The Orchard Keeper, set in rural Tennessee and published in 1965, found its way to Faulkner’s last publisher, who recognized the young writer’s potential. But despite positive reviews, and some shock reactions to this and other early works like Child of God and Outer Dark, commercial success eluded McCarthy. He got by on writers’ grants.

In 1985, Blood Meridian was published, attracting little attention at the time, although it is now considered his first major novel, and perhaps his best. With a lot of violence and without heroes, it tells the story of a band of scalp hunters in the mid-19th century.

A coming-of-age book that kicked off a trilogy centering on Texas ranch workers at the end of the border, All the Pretty Horses ultimately brought him acclaim in the 1990s.

The frontier trilogy was followed by No Country For Old Men, a deeply disturbing and fascinating Western whodunit about a drug deal gone bad, quickly adapted for film by Joel and Ethan Coen. It won the Oscar for best picture in 2007.

This was the time he also saw The Road post, which was perhaps even darker than the above. Set in a world where an unnamed disaster has wiped out society and food production, the novel follows a father and his son as they walk through a devastated landscape occupied by desperate people. All the depths of human depravity are on display, but also the love that the little family can sustain through it all. The Road won multiple awards and was also made into a movie in 2009.

Then came a long period until two new companion novels were released in 2022: interconnected books The Passenger and Stella Maris. They were unmistakably McCarthy, now approaching 90, albeit somewhat friendlier and, perhaps, goodbyes.

“Enough”, says a character who is approaching death. “I have never thought of this life as particularly healthy or benign and I have never in the least understood why I was here. If there is an afterlife, and I fervently pray that there isn’t, I can only hope they don’t sing.”

In a statement, Nihar Malaviya, CEO of Penguin Random House, said: “Cormac McCarthy changed the course of literature. For sixty years, he demonstrated an unwavering dedication to his craft and to exploring the infinite possibilities and power of the written word.”

McCarthy was married three times and divorced his third wife, Jennifer Winkley, in 2006. He had two sons: Cullen, born in 1962, and John, born in 1998.