Cormac McCarthy-2 new books

Sixteen years since _The Road_

McCarthy writes all of his fiction and correspondence with an Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter. He does not use a computer.

Many consider Cormac McCarthy to be the greatest living writer in the U.S.

Clara Dowd has observed:¹

McCarthy "focuses heavily on issues that fall under the broad area of contingency and chance: the uncertainty of our historical paths through life, the prevalence of luck in the world, and the radical uncertainty of that world's continued habitability."

It is sixteen years since publication of Cormac McCarthy’s Pulitzer Prize winning novel, The Road (2006).

Two new books in 2022: The Passenger and Stella Maris

Two new books by McCarthy will be released in October and November 2022 by Picador. The Passenger and Stella Maris. will be published in October and November 2022.²

McCarthy’s first novel was the _Orchard Keeper_ 1966

Cormac McCarthy was born in 1933. This is the dust jacket photo from 1965.

The Orchard Keeper won the William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel.

Blood Meridian- McCarthy’s Masterpiece- 1985

There has been much written about Blood Meridean (1985).³ “Books Made Out of Books” identifies some of the literary inspiration.⁴ These include Gustave Flaubert’s The Temptation of St. Anthony, Jacob Boehme’s vision of the devil as a frightening but necessary component of the divine reality at the heart of things, Beowulf, and Joseph Conrad.

All the Pretty Horses won the National Book Award in 1992.

The Border Trilogy is a series of novels by McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses (1992), The Crossing (1994), and Cities of the Plain (1998). It is mainly set on the border between the Southwestern United States and Mexico. All the Pretty Horses was made into a film produced and directed by Billy Bob Thornton, starring Matt Damon and Penélope Cruz.

No Country for Old Men- 2005, Academy Award for Best picture, 2008

McCarthy’s 2005 novel, No Country for Old Men was made into an Academy Award winning movie by Joel and Ethan Coen with Javier Bardem winning best supporting actor.

The Road -2006- Pulitzer Prize for Fiction

Set in a post-­ apocalypse wasteland of snow, ash, and sunless skies, The Road follows the fortunes of a boy and his father as they travel south to warmer lands along the coast. It won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction. The Road was made into a film with Viggo Mortensen in 2009.⁵

Cormac McCarthy papers are at Texas State University

The Cormac McCarthy Papers are in the Southwestern Writers Collection at Texas State University in San Marcos Texas.⁶ The archive website states⁷:  

McCarthy’s body of work includes some of the finest novels of our times. Critic Harold Bloom declares Blood Meridian (1985) “the authentic American apocalyptic novel,” stating, “The fulfilled renown of Moby-Dick and of As I Lay Dying is augmented by Blood Meridian, since Cormac McCarthy is the worthy disciple both of Melville and of Faulkner. I venture that no other living American novelist, not even Pynchon, has given us a book as strong and memorable….” 

The complete collection of McCarthy’s literary papers documents his entire writing career. At the core is correspondence, notes, hand-written and typed drafts, setting copies, and proofs of each of his 10 novels, from The Road back to The Orchard Keeper.

The Road (2009) Official Trailer

1. Clara Dowd,. (2020). “The Santa Fe Institute,” 33-44 in Frye, Steven (editor). Cormac McCarthy in Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019.

2. Picador to publish two new novels by Cormac McCarthy - Pan Macmillan

3. Evans, Justin. “To Disenchant and Disintoxicate: Blood Meridian as Critical Epic.” Modern philology 112.2 (2014): 405–426; Mundik, Petra. “‘Striking the Fire Out of the Rock’: Gnostic Theology in Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.” South Central Review 26.3 (2009): 72–97; Cusher, Brent Edwin. “Cormac McCarthy’s Definition of Evil: Blood Meridian and the Case of Judge Holden.” Perspectives on political science 43.4 (2014): 223–230; Steven, Mark. “High Road to Hell: Milton, Blake, McCarthy.” The Cormac McCarthy journal 14.2 (2016): 149–167.

4. Crews, Micahel Lynn. “Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West.” Books Are Made Out of Books. University of Texas Press, 2017

5. Chabon, Michael (February 15, 2007). "After the Apocalypse". The New York Review of Books.

6. “Archives, Critical History, Translation.” (2020). In S. Frye (Ed.), Cormac McCarthy in Context (Literature in Context, pp. 271-342). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

7. Cormac McCarthy Press Release : The Wittliff Collections. Texas State University.