Cormac McCarthy

Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr.{{cite news| author = Don Williams| title = Cormac McCarthy Crosses the Great Divide| url = http://newmillenniumwritings.com/Issue14/CormacMcCarthy.html| publisher = New Millennium Writings| access-date = February 8, 2016| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20160303171328/http://newmillenniumwritings.com/Issue14/CormacMcCarthy.html| archive-date = March 3, 2016| df = mdy-all}} was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 20, 1933, one of six children of Gladys Christina McGrail and Charles Joseph McCarthy.{{Cite web |last=Brown |first=Fred |date=January 29, 2009 |title=Sister: Childhood home made Cormac McCarthy |url=http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jan/29/sister-childhood-home-maed-writer/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101124181550/http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2009/jan/29/sister-childhood-home-made-writer/ |archive-date=November 24, 2010 |access-date=February 16, 2021 |website=Knoxville News Sentinel}} His family was Irish Catholic.{{cite web|url =https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572|title =Hollywood's Favorite Cowboy|first =John|last =Jurgensen|website =The Wall Street Journal|date =November 13, 2009|access-date =August 3, 2017|archive-date =August 2, 2017|archive-url =https://web.archive.org/web/20170802183238/https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572|url-status =live}} In 1937, the family relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father worked as a lawyer for the Tennessee Valley Authority.{{Cite web |title=Biography |url=http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/biography/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120413171822/http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/biography/ |archive-date=April 13, 2012 |access-date=February 16, 2021 |website=CormacMcCarthy.com}} 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.{{Cite web |last=Neely |first=Jack |date=February 3, 2009 |title='The House Where I Grew Up': A eulogy for a neglected landmark |url=http://www.metropulse.com/news/2009/feb/03/house-where-i-grew/ |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130728114947/http://www.metropulse.com/news/2009/feb/03/house-where-i-grew |archive-date=July 28, 2013 |access-date=February 16, 2021 |website=metropulse. com}} McCarthy later said, "We were considered rich because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks."{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|title=Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction|first=Richard B.|last=Woodward|author-link=Richard B. Woodward|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 19, 1992|access-date=April 21, 2020|archive-date=March 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303041513/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|url-status=live}} Among his childhood friends was Jim Long (1930–2012), who was later depicted as J-Bone in Suttree.{{Cite web |last=Neely |first=Jack |date=September 19, 2012 |title=Jim "J-Bone" Long, 1930–2012: One Visit With a Not-Quite Fictional Character |url=http://www.metropulse.com/news/2012/sep/19/jim-j-bone-long-1931-2012-one-visit-not-quite-fict/?print=1 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131231000123/http://www.metropulse.com/news/2012/sep/19/jim-j-bone-long-1931-2012-one-visit-not-quite-fict/?print=1 |archive-date=December 31, 2013 |access-date=February 16, 2021 |website=metropulse.com}}

McCarthy attended St. Mary's Parochial School and Knoxville Catholic High School,{{Cite book |last=Wallach |first=Rick |year=2013 |title=You Would Not Believe What Watches: Suttree and Cormac McCarthy's Knoxville |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Oqyh6snZAB0C&q=james+william+long&pg=PA89 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200729171332/https://books.google.com/books?id=Oqyh6snZAB0C&pg=PA89&q=james%20william%20long#v=snippet&q=james%20william%20long&f=falsehttps://web.archive.org/web/20200729171332/https://books.google.com/books?id=Oqyh6snZAB0C&pg=PA89&q=james%20william%20long |archive-date=July 29, 2020 |access-date=February 17, 2021 |via=google.ca.books |publisher=Louisiana State University Press |page=59|isbn=978-0-8071-5422-9 }} 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, studying liberal arts.{{cite book|chapter=Life and Career|first=Steven|last=Frye|pages=3–12|year=2020|location=New York|publisher=Cambridge University Press|title=Cormac McCarthy in Context|editor-first=Steven|editor-last=Fyre|doi=10.1017/9781108772297.002|isbn=978-1-108-77229-7|s2cid=234965059}} 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, 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.{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QFw722-PbCcC&pg=PT404|title=Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South|last=Giemza|first=Bryan|date=July 8, 2013|publisher=LSU Press|isbn=978-0-8071-5092-4|via=Google Books|access-date=November 29, 2017}}{{Cite web |last=Woodward |first=Richard B. |date=1992-04-19 |title=Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html |access-date=2025-02-11 |website=archive.nytimes.com}}

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.{{cite news|url=https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/desperately-seeking-cormac/|title=Desperately Seeking Cormac|first=Michael|last=Hall|work=Texas Monthly|date=July 1998|access-date=April 25, 2020|archive-date=January 31, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200131100220/https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/desperately-seeking-cormac/|url-status=live}}

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.{{Cite book|title=Rufus: James Agee in Tennessee|last=Brown|first=Paul F.|publisher=University of Tennessee Press|year=2018|isbn=978-1-62190-424-3|location=Knoxville|pages=251–52}} Lee moved to Wyoming shortly after, where she filed for divorce from McCarthy.{{cite news|url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bakersfield/obituary.aspx?n=lee-mccarthy&pid=125527543|title=Obituary: Lee McCarthy|date=March 29, 2009|newspaper=The Bakersfield Californian|access-date=March 16, 2012|archive-date=October 14, 2012|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121014014018/http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/bakersfield/obituary.aspx?n=lee-mccarthy&pid=125527543|url-status=live}}

File:The Orchard Keeper - Cormac McCarthy.jpg (1965), McCarthy's first novel]]

In 1965, Random House 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.{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2005/08/cormac-mccarthy-interview |title=Cormac Country |first=Richard B. |last=Woodward |date=August 2005 |magazine=Vanity Fair |access-date=April 22, 2020 |archive-date=August 15, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200815201750/https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2005/08/cormac-mccarthy-interview |url-status=live }} Upon its release, critics noted its similarity to the work of Faulkner and praised McCarthy's striking use of imagery.{{Cite web |url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-orchard.html |title=Still Another Disciple of William Faulkner |website=The New York Times |access-date=April 23, 2020 |archive-date=February 7, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200207205229/http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-orchard.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web|url=https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cormac-mccarthy/orchard-keeper/|title=The Orchard Keeper by Cormac McCarthy|website=Kirkus Reviews|language=en|access-date=April 23, 2020|archive-date=July 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728215915/https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/cormac-mccarthy/orchard-keeper/|url-status=live}} The Orchard Keeper won a 1966 William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel.{{Cite web |url=https://www.newsweek.com/cormac-mccarthy-new-book-363027 |title=New Cormac McCarthy Book, 'The Passenger,' Unveiled |date=August 15, 2015 |access-date=April 26, 2020|website= Newsweek |archive-date=March 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200318070823/https://www.newsweek.com/cormac-mccarthy-new-book-363027 |url-status=live }}

While living in the French Quarter in New Orleans, 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 grant, which he used to travel around Southern Europe before landing in Ibiza, where he wrote his second novel, Outer Dark (1968). Afterward, he returned to the United States with his wife, where Outer Dark was published to generally favorable reviews.{{cite book|last=Arnold|first=Edwin|title=Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy|publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=1999|isbn=1-57806-105-9}}

File:Cormac McCarthy (Outer Dark author portrait).jpg

In 1969, the couple moved to Louisville, Tennessee, and purchased a dairy barn,{{Cite news|first=Mary|last=Buckner|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110461480/the-lexington-herald/|title=Self-Satisfaction Novelist's Goal|date=March 2, 1975|work=Lexington Herald|access-date=October 1, 2022|page=E-4|via=Newspapers.com|archive-date=October 1, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221001221236/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110461480/the-lexington-herald/|url-status=live}} 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).{{Cite news|first=Martha|last=Byrd|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110539738/martha-byrd-east-tennessee-author/|title=East Tennessee Author Talks About His Works And His Life|date=December 16, 1973|work=Kingsport Times-News|access-date=October 1, 2022|page=9-C|via=Newspapers.com|archive-date=October 1, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221001220331/https://www.newspapers.com/clip/110539738/martha-byrd-east-tennessee-author/|url-status=live}} Like Outer Dark before it, Child of God was set in southern Appalachia. In 1976, McCarthy separated from Anne DeLisle and moved to El Paso, Texas.

{{cite news|last=Woodward|first=Richard|title=Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 17, 1998|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|access-date=July 14, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200320203435/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|archive-date=March 20, 2020}}

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.{{Cite web |title=The Gardener's Son |url=https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062387264/the-gardeners-son/ |access-date=2021-02-17 |website=harpercollins.ca |archive-date=2021-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210511005556/https://www.harpercollins.ca/9780062387264/the-gardeners-son/ |url-status=live }} 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.{{cite book |last=McCarthy |first=Cormac |title=The Gardener's Son |publisher=The Ecco Press |date=1996-09-01 |accessdate=2010-12-06 |quote=Front and back book flaps. |url=http://www.fedpo.com/BookDetail.php/The-Gardeners-Son }} 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.{{cite journal |url=https://www.vanityfair.com/style/story/cormac-mccarthy-secret-muse-exclusive?srsltid=AfmBOoo39RMsrC5sYLu98wahp3Gb5-aaGL2iFtKB0Ni2Yoxbgypfc3eb |title=Cormac McCarthy's Secret Muse Breaks Her Silence After Half a Century: "I Loved Him. He Was My Safety." |first1=Vincenzo |last1=Barney |first2=Norman Jean |last2=Roy |journal=Vanity Fair |date=2024-11-20 |accessdate=2024-11-28 |issue=Hollywood 2025 }}

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. 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."{{cite news |last=Charyn |first=Jerome |author-link=Jerome Charyn |title=Suttree |url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-suttree.html |access-date=January 31, 2021 |work=The New York Times |date=February 18, 1979 |archive-date=February 6, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210206053832/https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-suttree.html |url-status=live }}{{Cite web |title=Cormac McCarthy Papers |url=http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/mccarthypapers.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110613214012/http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/mccarthypapers.html |archive-date=June 13, 2011 |access-date=February 17, 2021 |website=The Wittliff Collections}}{{cite news|last=Broyard|first=Anatole|date=January 20, 1979|title=Books of The Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/20/archives/books-of-the-times-where-all-tales-are-tall-dont-have-to-like-him.html|work=The New York Times |access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=August 20, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200820214343/https://www.nytimes.com/1979/01/20/archives/books-of-the-times-where-all-tales-are-tall-dont-have-to-like-him.html|url-status=live}}

In 1981, McCarthy was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship worth $236,000. Saul Bellow, 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 declaring it the "bloodiest book since the Iliad{{-"}}. Although snubbed by many critics, the book has grown appreciably in stature in literary circles; Harold Bloom called Blood Meridian "the greatest single book since Faulkner's As I Lay Dying".{{cite news|url=https://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian,29214/|title=Harold Bloom on Blood Meridian|last=Bloom|first=Harold|author-link=Harold Bloom |work=A.V. Club|date=June 15, 2009|access-date=March 3, 2010|archive-date=December 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201225163023/https://www.avclub.com/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian-1798216782|url-status=dead}} In a 2006 poll of authors and publishers conducted by The New York Times Magazine to list the greatest American novels of the previous quarter-century, Blood Meridian placed third, behind Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) and Don DeLillo's Underworld (1997).{{cite news|title=What Is the Best Work of American Fiction of the Last 25 Years?|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-years.html|newspaper=The New York Times|date=May 21, 2006|access-date=April 30, 2010|archive-date=August 8, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200808213223/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/21/books/fiction-25-years.html|url-status=live}}{{Cite web | title=Bloom on 'Blood Meridian' | url=http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/bloodmeridian.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060324165326/http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/bloodmeridian.htm | archive-date=March 24, 2006}} Some have even suggested it is the Great American Novel.{{cite web | url=https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/books/meet-the-author/william-dalrymple-blood-meridian-is-the-great-american-novel | title=Blood Meridian is the Great American Novel | first=William | last=Dalrymple | work=Reader's Digest | quote=McCarthy's descriptive powers make him the best prose stylist working today, and this book the Great American Novel. | access-date=May 4, 2020 | archive-date=July 28, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728233313/https://www.readersdigest.co.uk/culture/books/meet-the-author/william-dalrymple-blood-meridian-is-the-great-american-novel | url-status=live }} Time included it on their 2005 list of the 100 best English-language books published since 1923.{{cite news| author = Lev Grossman and Richard Lacayo| title = All Time 100 Novels – The Complete List| url = http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html| magazine = Time| date = October 16, 2005| access-date = June 3, 2008| archive-date = April 25, 2010| archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20100425071623/http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html}} At the time, McCarthy was living in a stone cottage behind an El Paso shopping center, which he described as "barely habitable".

As of 1991, none of McCarthy's novels had sold more than 5,000 hardcover copies, and "for most of his career, he did not even have an agent". He was labeled the "best unknown novelist in America".

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|video1=[https://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/oprahs-exclusive-interview-with-cormac-mccarthy-video McCarthy's 2007 interview with Oprah Winfrey] (5:51) via Oprah.com

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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{{cite book|chapter=History and the Ugly Facts of Blood Meridian|first=Dana|last=Phillips|editor-first=James D.|editor-last=Lilley|title=Cormac McCarthy: New Directions|year=2014|location= Albuquerque, NM|publisher=University of New Mexico Press|pages=17–46}} 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.{{cite news|last=Schedeen|first=Jesse|date=April 2, 2020|title=Binge It! The Allure of Cormac McCarthy's Beautifully Desolate Border Trilogy|url=https://www.ign.com/articles/binge-it-cormac-mccarthy-border-trilogy-audiobook-ebook|work=IGN|access-date=October 24, 2020|archive-date=December 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201225163041/https://www.ign.com/articles/binge-it-cormac-mccarthy-border-trilogy-audiobook-ebook|url-status=live}}

In the midst of this trilogy came The Stonemason (first performed in 1995), his second dramatic work.{{cite book|title=The Stonemason|url=http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb2617550|via=UNC-Chapel Hill Library catalog|year=1994|publisher=University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill|isbn=978-0-88001-359-8|access-date=January 31, 2017|archive-date=March 20, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170320140940/http://search.lib.unc.edu/search?R=UNCb2617550|url-status=live}}{{cite news|last=Battersby|first=Eileen|date=October 25, 1997|title=The Stonemason by Cormac McCarthy|url=https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-stonemason-by-cormac-mccarthy-picador-6-99-in-uk-1.119654|newspaper=The Irish Times|access-date=October 24, 2020|archive-date=December 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201225163023/https://www.irishtimes.com/news/the-stonemason-by-cormac-mccarthy-picador-6-99-in-uk-1.119654|url-status=live}}

McCarthy originally conceived his next work, No Country for Old Men (2005),{{efn|group=note|Its title originates from the 1926 poem "Sailing to Byzantium" by Irish poet W. B. Yeats.{{cite journal |last=Frye |first=Steven |date=Spring 2005 |title=Yeats' 'Sailing to Byzantium' and McCarthy's No Country for Old Men: Art and Artifice in the New Novel |journal=The Cormac McCarthy Journal |volume=5 |number=1 |pages=14–20 |publisher=The Cormac McCarthy Society |location=Miami |jstor=42909368}}}} 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,{{cite news |last=Proulx |first=Annie |date=October 28, 2005 |title=Gunning for trouble |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview16 |work=The Guardian |access-date=February 21, 2021 |archive-date=January 26, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210126064143/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2005/oct/29/featuresreviews.guardianreview16 |url-status=live}} No Country for Old Men was adapted by the Coen brothers into a 2007 film of the same name, which won four Academy Awards 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.{{efn|group=note|The concept of post-apocalyptic cannibals spawned from a discussion McCarthy had with his brother.{{cite news|author=John Jurgensen|title=Hollywood's Favorite Cowboy|url=https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572|work=The Wall Street Journal|date=April 25, 2020|access-date=April 25, 2012|archive-date=December 24, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141224190029/http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748704576204574529703577274572|url-status=live}}}} Many of the discussions between the two were verbatim conversations McCarthy had had with his son.{{cite web|last=Winfrey|first=Oprah|title=Oprah's Exclusive Interview with Cormac McCarthy Video|url=http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Oprahs-Exclusive-Interview-with-Cormac-McCarthy-Video|work=Oprah Winfrey Show|publisher=Harpo Productions, Inc.|access-date=April 25, 2020|archive-date=July 1, 2014|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140701191929/http://www.oprah.com/oprahsbookclub/Oprahs-Exclusive-Interview-with-Cormac-McCarthy-Video|url-status=live}} Released in 2006, it won international acclaim and the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.{{Cite web |title=Fiction: The Pulitzer Prize |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/219 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190402201626/https://www.pulitzer.org/prize-winners-by-category/219 |archive-date=April 2, 2019 |access-date=February 17, 2021}} McCarthy did not accept the prize in person, instead sending Sonny Mehta in his place.{{Cite web |url=https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/cormac-mccarthy |title=The Road, by Cormac McCarthy (Alfred A. Knopf)|access-date=April 27, 2020 |archive-date=May 26, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200526111407/https://www.pulitzer.org/winners/cormac-mccarthy |url-status=live }} John Hillcoat directed the 2009 film adaptation, written by Joe Penhall, and starring Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. Critics' reviews were mostly favorable: Roger Ebert found it "powerful" but lacking "emotional feeling",{{Cite web |title=Walking from here to anywhere through nowhere, and worse |url=https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-road-2009 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116065055/https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-road-2009 |archive-date=January 16, 2020 |access-date=February 17, 2021 |website=RogerEbert.com}} Peter Bradshaw noted "a guarded change of emphasis",{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/07/the-road-review |title=The Guardian review of The Road |website= The Guardian |date=January 7, 2010 |access-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-date=July 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728215938/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2010/jan/07/the-road-review |url-status=live }} while Dan Jolin found it to be a "faithful adaptation" of the "devastating novel".{{Cite web |url=https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/road-2-review/ |title=The Road Review |website=emprieonline.com |date=December 30, 2009 |access-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116065052/https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/road-2-review/ |url-status=live }}

File:The-road.jpg (2006), for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction]]

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".{{cite news|last=Jones|first=Chris|title=Brilliant, but hardly a play.|url=https://www.chicagotribune.com/2006/05/29/brilliant-but-hardly-a-play/|newspaper=Chicago Tribune|date=May 29, 2006|access-date=April 23, 2020|archive-date=September 14, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160914121715/http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2006-05-29/features/0605290129_1_suicidal-sunset-limited-white|url-status=live}}{{cite news|url=http://theater2.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/theater/reviews/31suns.html|title=A Debate of Souls, Torn Between Faith and Unbelief|last=Zinoman|first=Jason|author-link=Jason Zinoman |date=October 31, 2006|work=The New York Times|access-date=April 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801083552/https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/31/theater/reviews/31suns.html|archive-date=August 1, 2020}} 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 selected McCarthy's The Road as the April 2007 selection for her Book Club.{{cite news |last=Van Gelder |first=Lawrence |author-link=Lawrence Van Gelder |date=March 29, 2007 |title=Arts, Briefly |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/arts/29arts.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150605114842/http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/29/arts/29arts.html |archive-date=June 5, 2015}} As a result, McCarthy agreed to his first television interview, which aired on The Oprah Winfrey Show on June 5, 2007. The interview took place in the library of the Santa Fe Institute. 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.{{cite news |url= https://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/no-country-old-men-novelist-cormac-mccarthy-sells-first-spec-script-34512 |title= Cormac McCarthy Sells First Spec Script |work= TheWrap |access-date= February 18, 2020 |archive-date= July 7, 2017 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20170707153350/http://www.thewrap.com/deal-central/column-post/no-country-old-men-novelist-cormac-mccarthy-sells-first-spec-script-34512/ |url-status= live }} Directed by Ridley Scott, with the production finished in 2012, the film was released on October 25, 2013, to polarized critical reception. Mark Kermode of The Guardian found it "datedly naff",{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/17/counsellor-cameron-diaz-review |title=The Counsellor – review Mark Kermode |website=The Guardian |date=November 17, 2013 |access-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116070240/https://www.theguardian.com/film/2013/nov/17/counsellor-cameron-diaz-review |url-status=live }} and Peter Travers of Rolling Stone described it as "a droning meditation on capitalism".{{Cite magazine |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-counselor-109718/ |title=Rolling Stone review |access-date=January 16, 2020|magazine=Rolling Stone |date=October 24, 2013 |archive-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200116070239/https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-reviews/the-counselor-109718/ |url-status=live }} However, Manohla Dargis of The New York Times found it "terrifying" and "seductive".{{Cite news |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/movies/the-counselor-a-cormac-mccarthy-tale-of-mostly-evil.html |title=NY Times review |website=The New York Times |date=October 24, 2013 |access-date=January 16, 2020 |archive-date=April 16, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160416190410/http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/movies/the-counselor-a-cormac-mccarthy-tale-of-mostly-evil.html |url-status=live |last1=Dargis |first1=Manohla }}

McCarthy was a trustee for the Santa Fe Institute (SFI), a multidisciplinary research center devoted to the study of complex adaptive systems.{{cite magazine |last=Romeo |first=Rick |url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/cormac-mccarthy-explains-the-unconscious |title=Cormac McCarthy explains the unconscious |magazine=The New Yorker |date=April 22, 2017 |access-date=March 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200709201018/https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/cormac-mccarthy-explains-the-unconscious|archive-date=July 9, 2020}} Unlike most members of the SFI, McCarthy did 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 "The Kekulé Problem" (2017), McCarthy analyzes a dream of August Kekulé's as a model of the unconscious mind and the origins of language. He theorizes about the nature of the unconscious mind and its separation from human language. The unconscious, according to McCarthy, "is a machine for operating an animal" and "all animals have an unconscious". McCarthy postulates that language is a purely human cultural creation and not a biologically determined phenomenon.{{cite magazine |last=McCarthy |first=Cormac |url=http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem |title=The Kekulé Problem: Where did language come from? |magazine=Nautilus |issue=47 |date=April 20, 2017 |access-date=March 23, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728222238/http://nautil.us/issue/47/consciousness/the-kekul-problem|archive-date=July 28, 2020}}

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 [and] analytical 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.{{Cite web |last=Kroll |first=Justin |date=2023-04-28 |title=New Regency Adapting Cormac McCarthy's 'Blood Meridian' Into Feature Film With John Hillcoat Directing |url=https://deadline.com/2023/04/new-regency-cormac-mccarthys-blood-meridian-john-hillcoat-1235340998/ |access-date=2023-10-16 |website=Deadline |language=en-US}} 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."{{cite news|url = https://thefilmstage.com/john-hillcoat-reveals-cormac-mccarthys-faustian-vision-for-blood-meridian-film/|title = John Hillcoat Reveals Cormac McCarthy's "Faustian" Vision for Blood Meridian Film|last = Pearce|first = Leonard|work = The Film Stage|date = 30 December 2024|access-date=2025-01-02 |language=en-US}}

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| quote = He left the beer on the counter and went out and got the two packs of cigarettes and the binoculars and the pistol and slung the .270 over his shoulder and shut the truck door and came back in.

| source = —Cormac McCarthy's polysyndetic use of "and" in No Country for Old Men

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McCarthy used punctuation sparsely, even replacing most commas with "and" to create polysyndetons;{{cite web|url=http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/cormac-mccarthys-punctuation-rules.html|title=Cormac McCarthy's Three Punctuation Rules, and How They All Go Back to James Joyce|first=Josh|last=Jones|publisher=Open Culture|date=August 13, 2013|access-date=September 13, 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200520065828/http://www.openculture.com/2013/08/cormac-mccarthys-punctuation-rules.html|archive-date=May 20, 2020}} 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".{{cite book|first=Kenneth|last=Lincoln|title=Cormac McCarthy|url=https://archive.org/details/cormacmccarthyam00linc|url-access=limited|location=Basingstoke|publisher=Palgrave Macmillan|year=2009|isbn=978-0-230-61967-8|page=[https://archive.org/details/cormacmccarthyam00linc/page/n26 14]}} He did not use quotation marks for dialogue and believed there is no reason to "blot the page up with weird little marks".{{cite book|first=David|last=Crystal|title=Making a Point: The Pernickity Story of English Punctuation|year=2015|publisher=Profile Books|location=London|isbn=978-1-78125-350-2|page=92}} Erik Hage notes that McCarthy's dialogue often lacks attribution, but that "somehow{{nbsp}}... the reader remains oriented as to who is speaking."{{cite book|first=Erik|last=Hage| title=Cormac McCarthy: A Literary Companion|url=https://archive.org/details/cormacmccarthyli00hage|url-access=limited|location=Jefferson, NC|publisher=McFarland & Company|year=2010|isbn=978-0-7864-4310-9|page=[https://archive.org/details/cormacmccarthyli00hage/page/n164 156]}} 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.{{cite book|first=Willard P.|last=Greenwood|title=Reading Cormac McCarthy|year=2009|location=Santa Barbara, CA|publisher=ABC-CLIO|isbn=978-0-313-35664-3|page=4}} 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 in 1996, removing commas from the text.{{cite news|url=https://www.fastcompany.com/3064681/most-creative-people/most-important-economic-theory-in-technology-brian-Arthur|title=A Short History Of The Most Important Economic Theory In Tech|first=Rick|last=Tetzeli|publisher=Fast Company|date=December 7, 2016|access-date=July 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200801055534/https://www.fastcompany.com/3064681/most-important-economic-theory-in-technology-brian-arthur|archive-date=August 1, 2020}} He also copy edited work for physicists Lawrence M. Krauss and Lisa Randall.{{cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/21/cormac-mccarthy-scientific-copy-editor|title=Cormac McCarthy's parallel career revealed – as a scientific copy editor!|first=Alison|last=Flood|work=The Guardian|date=February 21, 2012|access-date=July 15, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200601103851/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/feb/21/cormac-mccarthy-scientific-copy-editor|archive-date=June 1, 2020}}

Saul Bellow praised his "absolutely overpowering use of language, his life-giving and death-dealing sentences".{{Cite book |last=Crews |first=Michael Lynn |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y8ssDwAAQBAJ |title=Books Are Made Out of Books: A Guide to Cormac McCarthy's Literary Influences |date=September 5, 2017 |publisher=University of Texas Press |isbn=978-1-4773-1348-0 |language=en |page=57 }} 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.

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| quote = There's no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is a really dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous.

| author = Cormac McCarthy

| source = interviewed in the New York Times (April 19, 1992){{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|title=Cormac McCarthy's Venomous Fiction|first=Richard B.|last=Woodward|newspaper=The New York Times|date=April 19, 1992|access-date=April 22, 2020|archive-date=March 3, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180303041513/http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/17/specials/mccarthy-venom.html|url-status=live}}

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McCarthy's novels often depict explicit violence.{{cite news |last=Adams|first=Tim|date=December 19, 2009|title=Cormac McCarthy: America's great poetic visionary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2009/dec/20/observer-profile-cormac-mccarthy|work=The Guardian|access-date=April 25, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200111221557/https://www.theguardian.com/theobserver/2009/dec/20/observer-profile-cormac-mccarthy|archive-date=January 11, 2020}} Many of his works have been characterized as nihilistic,{{cite journal |last1=Bell|first1=Vereen M.|date=Spring 1983|title=The Ambiguous Nihilism of Cormac McCarthy|journal=Southern Literary Journal|volume=15|issue= 2|pages=31–41|jstor=20077701}} particularly Blood Meridian.{{Cite web|title=Harold Bloom on Blood Meridian|url=http://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian,29214/|date=June 15, 2009|access-date=April 26, 2020|work=The A.V. Club|archive-date=November 5, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131105103802/http://www.avclub.com/articles/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian,29214/|url-status=dead}} Some academics dispute this, saying Blood Meridian is actually a gnostic tragedy.{{Cite book |author=Edwin T. Arnold |author2=Dianne C. Luce |chapter-url=https://muse.jhu.edu/pub/201/monograph/chapter/673332 |chapter-url-access=subscription |title=Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy |publisher=University Press of Mississippi|year=1999|isbn=978-1-60473-650-2|editor-last=Arnold|editor-first=Edwin T. |location=Jackson |chapter=Gravers False and True: Blood Meridian as Gnostic Tragedy |via=Project MUSE |access-date=April 27, 2020}}{{Cite journal|url = https://muse.jhu.edu/article/363646|doi = 10.1353/scr.0.0057|title = "Striking the Fire Out of the Rock": Gnostic Theology in Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian|year = 2009|last1 = Mundik|first1 = Petra|journal = South Central Review |volume = 26|issue = 3|pages = 72–97|s2cid = 144187406|access-date = April 27, 2020|archive-date = June 2, 2018|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20180602190448/http://muse.jhu.edu/article/363646|url-status = live|url-access = subscription}} 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.{{cite web|last1=Wielenberg|first1=Erik J.|date=Fall 2010|title=God, Morality, and Meaning in Cormac McCarthy's The Road|url=http://kmckean.myteachersite.com/teacher/files/documents/god,%20morality,%20and%20meaning.pdf|website=kmckean.myteachersite.com |access-date=April 26, 2020|archive-date=January 10, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200110223123/http://kmckean.myteachersite.com/teacher/files/documents/god,%20morality,%20and%20meaning.pdf|url-status=live}}

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.{{cite journal |last1=Hwang|first1=Jung-Suk|title=The Wild West, 9/11, and Mexicans in Cormac McCarthy's No Country for Old Men|journal=Texas Studies in Literature and Language|year=2018|volume=60|issue=3|pages=346–371|doi=10.7560/TSLL60304|s2cid=165691304}} Many of his works portray individuals in conflict with society and acting on instinct rather than on emotion or thought.{{Cite web |url=https://www.macfound.org/fellows/104/ |title=Cormac McCarthy Writer Class of December 1981|website=MacArthur Foundation |access-date=April 29, 2020 |archive-date=July 28, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728224429/https://www.macfound.org/fellows/104/ |url-status=live }} 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.{{Cite web | url=https://the-artifice.com/cormac-mccarthy-american-philosophy/ | title=Cormac McCarthy: An American Philosophy |website=The Artifice | date=May 26, 2014 | access-date=April 26, 2020 | archive-date=July 28, 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728220108/https://the-artifice.com/cormac-mccarthy-american-philosophy/ | url-status=live }} As a result, he has been labeled the "great pessimist of American literature".

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".{{cite book |last=Soto |first=Isabel |editor-last=Benito |editor-first=Jesús |title=Literature and Ethnicity in the Cultural Borderlands |publisher=Brill |date=January 1, 2002 |pages=51–61 |chapter=Chapter 4:The Border Paradigm in Cormac McCarthy's The Crossing.|isbn=}} 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".{{cite journal |last1=Sugg |first1=Katherine |date=2001 |title=Multicultural masculinities and the border romance in John Sayles's Lone Star and Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy |url= |journal=New Centennial Review |volume=1 |issue=3 |pages=117–154 |doi= 10.1353/ncr.2003.0071|s2cid=144132488 }} 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."{{Cite journal |last=Herlihy-Mara |first=Jeffrey |title="Mojado-Reverso" or, a Reverse Wetback: On John Grady Cole's Mexican Ancestry in Cormac McCarthy's All the Pretty Horses |url=https://www.academia.edu/16839513 |journal=Modern Fiction Studies |year=2015 |volume=61 |issue=3 |pages=469–492 |doi=10.1353/mfs.2015.0046 |s2cid=159643410 |jstor=26421901 }}

File:Olivetti Lettera 32 Typewriter.jpg typewriter between the early 1960s and 2009. At that time he replaced it with an identical model.]]

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."{{cite web |last=Jones |first=Josh |date=February 27, 2017 |title=Cormac McCarthy Explains Why He Worked Hard at Not Working: How 9-to-5 Jobs Limit Your Creative Potential |website=Open Culture |url=http://www.openculture.com/2017/02/cormac-mccarthy-explains-why-he-worked-hard-at-not-working-how-9-to-5-jobs-limit-your-creative-potential.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191004075202/http://www.openculture.com/2017/02/cormac-mccarthy-explains-why-he-worked-hard-at-not-working-how-9-to-5-jobs-limit-your-creative-potential.html |archive-date=October 4, 2019}} Early in his career, his decision not to work sometimes subjected him and his family to poverty.{{cite news |last=Conlon |first=Michael |date=June 5, 2007 |title=Writer Cormac McCarthy confides in Oprah Winfrey |publisher=Reuters |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mccarthy/writer-cormac-mccarthy-confides-in-oprah-winfrey-idUSN0526436120070605 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190116150008/https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mccarthy/writer-cormac-mccarthy-confides-in-oprah-winfrey-idUSN0526436120070605 |archive-date=January 16, 2019}}

Nevertheless, according to scholar Steve Davis, McCarthy had an "incredible work ethic".{{cite web |last=Davis |first=Steve |date=September 23, 2010 |title=Unpacking Cormac McCarthy |website=The Texas Observer |url=https://www.texasobserver.org/unpacking-cormac-mccarthy/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200710150604/https://www.texasobserver.org/unpacking-cormac-mccarthy/ |archive-date=July 10, 2020}} 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.{{cite news |last=Cohen |first=Patricia |date=November 30, 2009 |title=No Country for Old Typewriters: A Well-Used One Heads to Auction |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/books/01typewriter.html |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200616052132/https://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/books/01typewriter.html |archive-date=June 16, 2020}} He was known to conduct exhaustive research on the historical settings and regional environments found in his fiction.{{cite web |date=September 10, 2014 |title=News — Exhibition on McCarthy's Process |url=https://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/about/news/sept-2014-mccarthyjosyph.html |publisher=The Wittliff Collections at Texas State University |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200730023832/https://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/about/news/sept-2014-mccarthyjosyph.html |archive-date=July 30, 2020}} 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 process" which should be given space for spontaneous inspiration.{{cite web |last=Kushner |first=David |author-link=David Kushner (writer) |date=December 27, 2007 |title='If It Doesn't Concern Life and Death, It's Not Interesting': Cormac McCarthy's American Odyssey |magazine=Rolling Stone |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/cormac-mccarthy-reclusive-american-novelist-1234770602/ |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230615185600/https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-features/cormac-mccarthy-reclusive-american-novelist-1234770602/ |archive-date=June 15, 2023}}

After 1958, McCarthy wrote all of his literary work and correspondence with a mechanical typewriter. He originally used a Royal 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 was carved with a Swiss Army knife". His Olivetti was auctioned in December 2009 at Christie's, with the auction house estimating it would fetch between $15,000 and $20,000. It sold for $254,500, with proceeds donated to the Santa Fe Institute.{{cite news|last=Kennedy|first=Randy|url=http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/cormac-mccarthys-typewriter-brings-254500-at-auction|title=Cormac McCarthy's Typewriter Brings $254,500 at Auction|work=The New York Times|department=ArtsBeat|date=December 4, 2009|access-date=January 11, 2010|archive-date=December 10, 2009|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091210224006/http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/04/cormac-mccarthys-typewriter-brings-254500-at-auction/|url-status=live}} McCarthy replaced it with an identical model, bought for him by his friend John Miller for $11 plus $19.95 for shipping.

McCarthy was a teetotaler. According to Richard B. Woodward, "McCarthy doesn't drink anymore – he quit 16 years ago [i.e. in 1976] in 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 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. Five hours after the account's creation, McCarthy's publisher confirmed that the account was fake and that McCarthy did not own a computer.{{cite news |last=Creamer |first=Matt |title=An Unpublished Novelist's Week as Fake Cormac McCarthy |url=https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/unpublished-novelists-week-fake-cormac-mccarthy/332435/ |access-date=August 2, 2021 |work=The Atlantic |date=January 31, 2013 |archive-date=August 1, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210801173333/https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/01/unpublished-novelists-week-fake-cormac-mccarthy/332435/ |url-status=live }} 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.{{cite news |last=Gaynor |first=Jesse |title=The obviously fake Cormac McCarthy Twitter account has been verified, for some reason. |url=https://lithub.com/the-obviously-fake-cormac-mccarthy-twitter-account-has-been-verified-for-some-reason/ |access-date=August 2, 2021 |work=Lithub |date=August 2, 2021 |archive-date=August 2, 2021 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210802153431/https://lithub.com/the-obviously-fake-cormac-mccarthy-twitter-account-has-been-verified-for-some-reason/ |url-status=live }}{{cite magazine |last=Blistein |first=Joe |title=No Twitter for Old Men: No, That Cormac McCarthy Account Is Not Real |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-news/cormac-mccarthy-twitter-verified-account-fake-1206107/ |access-date=August 2, 2021 |magazine=Rolling Stone |date=August 2, 2021}}

In 2016, a hoax spread on Twitter claiming that McCarthy had died, with USA Today even repeating the information.{{cite web|url=https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cormac-mccarthy-death-hoax/|title=Cormac McCarthy Death Hoax|last=Evon|first=Dan|date=June 28, 2016|website=Snopes|access-date=July 21, 2021|archive-date=March 27, 2022|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220327002903/https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/cormac-mccarthy-death-hoax/|url-status=live}}{{cite news|last=Kircher|first=Madison Malone|date=June 28, 2016|title=Why USA Today Wrongly Tweeted That Cormac McCarthy Had Died|url=https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/06/usa-today-falls-victim-to-twitter-hoax-proclaims-cormac-mccarthy-dead.html|work=Intelligencer|publisher=New York|access-date=July 21, 2021|archive-date=July 21, 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210721171633/https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/06/usa-today-falls-victim-to-twitter-hoax-proclaims-cormac-mccarthy-dead.html|url-status=live}} The Los Angeles Times responded to the hoax with the headline, "Cormac McCarthy isn't dead. He's too tough to die."{{cite news|url=https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-cormac-mccarthy-not-dead-20160628-snap-htmlstory.html|title=Cormac McCarthy isn't dead. He's too tough to die|first=Michael|last=Schaub|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|date=June 28, 2016|access-date=April 29, 2020|archive-date=July 28, 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728214405/https://www.latimes.com/books/jacketcopy/la-et-jc-cormac-mccarthy-not-dead-20160628-snap-htmlstory.html|url-status=live}}

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.{{cite news |last1=Knight |first1=Lucy |title=Cormac McCarthy had 16-year-old 'muse' when he was 42, Vanity Fair reports |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/20/cormac-mccarthy-began-relationship-with-16-year-old-while-42-and-married |access-date=20 November 2024 |work=The Guardian |date=20 November 2024}}

McCarthy did not publicly reveal his political opinions.{{Cite web|url = https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/why-dont-republicans-write-fiction/|title = Why Don't Republicans Write Fiction?|date = March 6, 2007|access-date = April 22, 2020|archive-date = June 8, 2020|archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20200608202802/https://nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/why-dont-republicans-write-fiction/|url-status = live}} 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".{{cite book|chapter=North American Politics|first=David|last=Holloway|pages=197–206|year=2020|location=New York, NY|publisher=Cambridge University Press|title=Cormac McCarthy in Context|editor-first=Steven|editor-last=Fyre|doi=10.1017/9781108772297.019|isbn=978-1-108-77229-7|s2cid=234965059 }}

In one of his few interviews, McCarthy revealed that he respected only authors who "deal with issues of life and death", citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples of writers who do not. "I don't understand them ... To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange", he said.

Regarding his own literary constraints when writing novels, McCarthy said he was "not a fan of some of the Latin American writers, magical realism. You know, it's hard enough to get people to believe what you're telling them without making it impossible. It has to be vaguely plausible."{{cite magazine|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673269-2,00.html|title=A conversation between author Cormac McCarthy and the Coen Brothers, about the new movie No Country for Old Men|magazine=Time |date=October 18, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170228165938/http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1673269-2,00.html|archive-date=February 28, 2017}} He cited Moby-Dick (1851) as 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 and whale biologist Roger Payne. Of all of his interests, McCarthy stated, "Writing is way, way down at the bottom of the list."

McCarthy died at his home in Santa Fe on June 13, 2023, at the age of 89.{{cite web|first=Wade|last=Goodwyn|author-link=Wade Goodwyn|date=June 13, 2023|title=Cormac McCarthy, American novelist of the stark and dark, dies at 89|url=https://www.npr.org/2023/06/13/598425063/cormac-mccarthy-dies-obituary|website=NPR|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230614020218/https://www.npr.org/2023/06/13/598425063/cormac-mccarthy-dies-obituary|archive-date=June 14, 2023|url-status=live}}{{cite web|first=Susie|last=Coen|date=June 13, 2023|title=Cormac McCarthy: Pulitzer Prize-winning US author dies aged 89|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/cormac-mccarthy-dead-89/|website=The Telegraph|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230613213715/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2023/06/13/cormac-mccarthy-dead-89/|archive-date=June 13, 2023|url-status=live}}{{cite web|first=Christian|last=Lorentzen|date= June 14, 2023|title=Cormac McCarthy, writer, 1933{{ndash}}2023|url=https://www.ft.com/content/9120c16b-5aaf-4ce7-ad6e-843bba55da83|website=Financial Times|archive-url=https://archive.today/20230614150736/https://www.ft.com/content/9120c16b-5aaf-4ce7-ad6e-843bba55da83|archive-date=June 14, 2023|url-status=live}}{{cite web|first=Eric|last=Homberger|date=June 14, 2023|title=Cormac McCarthy obituary|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/14/cormac-mccarthy-obituary|website=The Guardian|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230614123435/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/14/cormac-mccarthy-obituary|archive-date=June 14, 2023|url-status=live}} Stephen King 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."{{cite web|first1=Erum|last1=Salam|first2=Alison|last2=Flood|first3=Sian|last3=Cain|date=June 14, 2023|title=Cormac McCarthy, celebrated US novelist, dies aged 89|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/13/cormac-mccarthy-dead-novelist|website=The Guardian|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230614135410/https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jun/13/cormac-mccarthy-dead-novelist|archive-date=June 14, 2023|url-status=live}}

{{further|List of awards received by Cormac McCarthy}}

In 2003, literary critic Harold Bloom named McCarthy as one of the four major living American novelists, alongside Don DeLillo, Thomas Pynchon, and Philip Roth.{{cite web |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |date=September 24, 2003 |url=https://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/ |title=Dumbing down American readers |work=The Boston Globe |via=Boston.com |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200608204903/http://archive.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/09/24/dumbing_down_american_readers/ |archive-date=June 8, 2020}} Bloom's 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".{{cite book |last=Bloom |first=Harold |author-link=Harold Bloom |year=1994 |chapter=Appendix D: The Chaotic Age: A Canonical Prophecy |pages=548–567 |chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/westerncanonbook00bloorich/page/548 |chapter-url-access=registration |via=the Internet Archive {{registration required}} |title=The Western Canon: The Books and School of the Ages |publisher=Harcourt Brace & Company |location=Orlando, Florida |isbn=0-15-195747-9}} 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.{{nbsp}}... He has attained genius with that book."{{cite web |last=Pierce |first=Leonard |date=June 15, 2009 |title=Harold Bloom on Blood Meridian |website=The A.V. Club |url=https://www.avclub.com/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian-1798216782 |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200724055123/https://www.avclub.com/harold-bloom-on-blood-meridian-1798216782 |archive-date=July 24, 2020}}

A comprehensive archive of McCarthy's personal papers is preserved at the Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, Texas. The McCarthy papers consists of 98 boxes (46 linear feet).{{Cite web |url=http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/mccarthy.html |title=Cormac McCarthy Papers at The Wittliff Collections, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX |website=thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu |access-date=August 25, 2011 |archive-date=July 25, 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725180405/http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/mccarthy.html |url-status=live }} 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.{{cite news|url=https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/texas-state-acquires-mccarthy-archives-102545|title=Texas State acquires McCarthy archives|agency=Associated Press|work=The Hollywood Reporter|date=January 15, 2008|access-date=July 15, 2017|archive-date=September 15, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180915001721/https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/texas-state-acquires-mccarthy-archives-102545|url-status=live}} 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,{{cite web|url=http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/woolmer.html|title=Woolmer Collection of Cormac McCarthy : The Wittliff Collections: Texas State University|date=September 21, 2016|website=Thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu|access-date=November 29, 2017|archive-date=December 19, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171219190018/http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/woolmer.html|url-status=live}} 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.

{{Main|Cormac McCarthy bibliography}}

Novels

{{notelist|group=note}}

{{Reflist}}

{{Library resources box|by=yes|onlinebooks=yes|viaf=120685207}}

• {{cite book|title=Understanding Cormac McCarthy|first=Steven|last=Frye|publisher=University of South Carolina Press|year=2009|location=Columbia, SC|isbn=978-1-57003-839-6}}
• {{cite book|title=The Cambridge Companion to Cormac McCarthy|editor-first=Steven|editor-last=Frye|publisher=Cambridge University Press|location=Cambridge|year=2013|isbn=978-1-107-64480-9}}
• {{cite journal |last=Luce |first=Dianne C. |date=Spring 2001 |title=Cormac McCarthy: A Bibliography |journal=The Cormac McCarthy Journal |publisher=The Cormac McCarthy Society |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=72–84 |location=Miami |jstor=42909337}} ([http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/wp-content/uploads/McCarthyEnglishBib_20111026.pdf Updated version] published October 26, 2011.)
• {{cite episode|url=https://www.sciencefriday.com/segments/connecting-science-and-art/|title=Connecting Science and Art|series=Science Friday|date=April 8, 2011|access-date=May 25, 2015}}
• 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.

{{Archival records

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• {{Commons category-inline|Cormac McCarthy}}
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• [http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/ The Cormac McCarthy Society] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090717140609/http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/ |date=July 17, 2009 }}
• [http://www.thewittliffcollections.txstate.edu/research/a-z/mccarthy.html Southwestern Writers Collection at the Wittliff Collections, Texas State University] – Cormac McCarthy Papers
• {{IMDb name|0565092}}
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• [http://westernamericanliterature.com/cormac-mccarthy/ Western American Literature Journal: Cormac McCarthy]
• [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HrUy1Vn2KdI Couldn't Care Less. Cormac McCarthy in conversation with David Krakauer]

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