American literature has lost another giant with today’s news of Cormac McCarthy’s death at the age of 89. Like many giants, McCarthy inspired a kind of journalism cottage industry. His stylistic and creative influence influenced countless other writers, many of whom felt motivated to acknowledge that influence in their own writings. Below is a quintet of such works. long lead The editor has read and enjoyed it over the years.
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robert draper | texas monthly | July 1992 | 2,116 words
Cormac McCarthy appeared in El Paso around January 1976, but his move from Knoxville was unannounced and his arrival went completely unnoticed. He was a 43-year-old author of three out-of-print novels, twice divorced, and made a living solely through his literary pals. He could be seen at the pool halls, bowling alleys, and even various Mexican restaurants on the south side of town, always carrying an arcane book under his arm. The friends he slowly made had no idea who Cormac McCarthy was literary-wise. They know him to be a short, handsome man who wears modest clothes, who seems to live comfortably on his meager income, and who enjoys talking about almost every topic imaginable. But he just so happened to be into contemporary literature. He acknowledged how El Paso is the right environment to study his latest project, a spectacular project. blood meridian, Perhaps the most unflinchingly savage vision of the Wild West ever printed, in which cowboys and Indians skin each other and their own kind without a moment’s hesitation or remorse. But El Paso had other attractions for McCarthy. It was, he told a friend, “one of the last real cities left in America,” and was characterized by its unique eccentricities and geographical remoteness. Men can move freely in El Paso. He might get lost there.
david kushner | rolling stone | December 1, 2007 | 4,196 words
But in this rare gathering of leading minds, no one is more revered than the feisty old cowboy dipping his tortillas in beans at the lunch table. Wearing a crisp blue shirt and jeans, he sits comfortably with his weathered boots crossed, a theoretical biologist who had flown in from Berlin to explain what is called evolutionary economics: animal behavior and market forces. listening intently as they discuss their relationship. This is typical of Santa Fe and considers one phenomenon (biology) from the perspective of another phenomenon (economics).
The discussion quickly turns to the topic of suicide. As slides of West African tribes flashed on a biologist’s computer screen, the researchers said suicide attempts can be evaluated as an expression of a kind of market force, a threat to eliminate oneself as a source of benefit to others. I’m digging into this idea. The neuroscientist in the corner raises his hand and asks a question to the group. “Do you know any animals other than humans who commit suicide?”
My brain gets confused. The air conditioner is noisy. But this time, scientists are left perplexed.
Then, as usual, the cowboy tells him the answer.
“It’s a dolphin,” he said quietly. “So is Iruka.”
tom chiarella | esquire | June 28, 2009 | 5,900 words
Cormac McCarthy gave birth to his son as an old man, and this story is an ode to the ticking clock, the dwindling time, and the last chance. Last chance to become parents. Last chance to warn, train and prepare. The father struggles to teach. And the father teaches the boy how to fight. In the film’s first teaching scene, a father shows his son where to shoot himself in the head if the situation calls for it. The gun is loaded. This is probably the only horrifying turn of events in the film, and it’s a moment that appears in the book, as almost every moment in the film does. By the time it happens, it is understood to be a gesture of necessity. What we see there is a kind of modern nation, with bad teeth, pale, filthy, wet to the bone, and reaching its end. Whether you’ve read this book or not, the scene will captivate your heart.
jim white | wireless encapsulation | June 12, 2012 | 4,987 words
In my left coat pocket is a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s novel Dog-eared Satori, which happens to be set right here in Knoxville, all the way back in the ’50s. I’m not very good at planning, so to some extent (depending on how you view the mechanics of chance), it’s no surprise that it ended up in my suitcase when I was packing for this tour. It’s a coincidence. Similarly, I’m not a big bibliophile, and I’m certainly not the type of person who would find it exhilarating to find and use the very toilet that, say, Jack Kerouac shitted in while writing. on the road. That being said, I’m glad I ended up here in Knoxville, because the city itself is practically a character in the novel. It’s interesting to be in the physical location where the action takes place, as Gay Street and Central Street, where Walter’s barbershop is located, are featured frequently.It’s already about half Satori This time. I read this book from front to back many times. Usually when life’s events spiral out of control and a black cloud of depression descends, which has plagued me throughout my adult life.
noah gallagher shannon | oxford american | September 5, 2017 | 6,836 words
Even though it’s not all that unusual for a writer to traverse the literary landscape, McCarthy seems unique in being claimed by indigenous intellectuals from two separate regions. In the late ’60s, Guy Davenport wrote in McCarthy that Appalachia had “found a new storyteller for the darkness of the heart and the futile rebellion against fortune.” In the West as well, he is seen as a revitalizer of an aesthetic that has long been undervalued. In a public opinion poll conducted a few years ago, high altitude news It was named the Border Trilogy. all cute horses and its sequel, Some of our readers’ favorite books include books about their homes, along with canons by Lewis and Clark and Wallace Stegner.
These important classifications and deviations tell us several things about McCarthy. It’s just that no one understands him enough to name his place in the culture. And in his absence, responsibility for this naming has shifted to his adherents, many of whom have become obsessed with figuring out how best to preserve his legacy, and the closer they get to that, the more academic they become. It is a task that you will not be able to imagine. It’s like a Rorschach test. For many, he has become a ghost, a product of research, which is strange, because of course he is alive and writing. Today, at the age of 84, his presence already feels posthumous.