Remembering Cormac McCarthy: A Retrospective on the Life and Works of the Late Author

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Cormac McCarthy, the celebrated American author, died on Tuesday at the age of 89. Although he achieved mainstream success with his sixth novel, All the Pretty Horses, he had been writing for decades before that. Born in Rhode Island in 1933, McCarthy was raised in Tennessee and spent much of his life travelling around the country. His early works, including The Orchard Keeper (1965) and Outer Dark (1968), dealt with the rural poor of the American south, and received little attention at the time of their publication.

It was not until the 1980s that McCarthy began to attract wider notice. His novel, Suttree (1983), set in his hometown of Knoxville, Tennessee, was hailed as a masterpiece, although it was not a commercial success. Blood Meridian (1985), a Western set in the 1840s, was initially overlooked, but has since become regarded as one of the defining works of American literature.

McCarthy’s writing is notable for its stark, minimalist style and its concern with themes of violence and moral decay. His characters are often drifters, outsiders and outlaws, struggling to survive in a world that seems harsh and unforgiving. McCarthy’s prose is spare and poetic, with a lyricism that belies the brutality of his subject matter.

All the Pretty Horses marked a turning point in McCarthy’s career. The novel, which follows two young cowboys as they journey from Texas to Mexico in the 1940s, was a critical and commercial success, winning the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. It was the first of a trilogy that also included The Crossing and Cities of the Plain. The novels focus on the borderlands between the US and Mexico, and explore themes of identity, love, and loss.

McCarthy’s later works, including No Country for Old Men and The Road, brought him even greater commercial success and critical acclaim. No Country for Old Men, which tells the story of a manhunt for a psychotic killer, was adapted into a highly successful film by the Coen brothers. The Road, a post-apocalyptic novel set in a world destroyed by an unnamed catastrophe, won the Pulitzer Prize and was also adapted into a film.

Despite his success, McCarthy remained a reclusive and enigmatic figure. He rarely gave interviews, and little is known about his personal life. He was known to be an avid reader and admirer of writers such as Herman Melville, William Faulkner, and James Joyce. His own writing is often compared to that of Faulkner, and he has been called the “Melville of the West.”

McCarthy’s final works, The Passenger and Stella Maris, were published in 2022, after a 16-year hiatus. The novels received mixed reviews, with some critics praising them as a return to form, while others found them cold and austere. Stella Maris, in particular, was criticized for its limited perspective, as it is largely a monologue by a suicidal mathematical prodigy.

Despite the mixed reception of his final works, Cormac McCarthy’s legacy is secure. His spare, poetic prose and his bleak, uncompromising vision of the American West have earned him a place among the greatest writers of our time. As his friend and fellow writer, Sebastian Junger, said of his work: “He’s so good.”