Cormac McCarthy

August 25th, 2006

On a business trip last winter one of my coworkers introduced me to Cormac McCarthy, one of the truly great writers of the last quarter century. My first book was Blood Meridian, a vicious tale of evil centered around the enduring symbols of the American / Mexican frontier. Since then, McCarthy has become one of my favorite authors. A couple of weeks ago I found a whole slew of his books at our local bookshop for $4 each and grabbed them all. I immediately read "All the Pretty Horses" and am now working on "The Crossing".

McCarthy is one of those rare writers who is able to plumb to the depths of human experience without over-complicating his art. His prose is basic but beautiful in its symbolism; as you follow the twisting lines of his metaphors through an entire paragraph without significant punctuation, you begin to be immersed in the world he is creating on the page. It produces the same effect in me as good poetry: it evokes rather than describes the images it wishes to portray.

Here's what Wikipedia has to say about Mr. McCarthy:

Cormac McCarthy is an American novelist, author of nine Southern Gothic and Western novels. He lives in the Tesuque area of Santa Fe, New Mexico with his wife, Jennifer Winkley and their son John.

Literary critic Harold Bloom has named him as one of the four major American novelists of his time, along with Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, and Philip Roth. He is frequently compared by modern reviewers to William Faulkner and, less often, Herman Melville.

In 1981 McCarthy was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship (also known as the "genius" grant). He supported himself with this money while he wrote his next novel Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West which was published in 1985. This novel found the author switching the setting of his books to the Southwestern U.S.. Often regarded as McCarthy's finest work by his fans, the novel tells the story of a teenager who finds himself riding with a vicious gang of outlaws who are being paid by the Mexican government to bring back Indian scalps. The book unflinchingly depicts horrific acts of violence committed by Americans, Indians and Mexicans alike. Critics have noted strong gnostic elements in Blood Meridian.

Despite several awards and a number of positive reviews, McCarthy was not widely read until the publication of his sixth novel, All the Pretty Horses (1992). The book, the first part of what McCarthy calls "The Border Trilogy," spent some time on bestseller lists and won the National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award. It was later made into a film. The Crossing (1994) and Cities of the Plain (1998) rounded out the trilogy. In July 2005, McCarthy published his ninth book, No Country for Old Men.