On the Southern Literary Trail discussion

Cormac McCarthy was born Charles McCarthy on July 20, 1933, in Rhode Island. He was raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, living there on and off until 1976, when he headed west to El Paso, Texas.

McCarthy changed his name from Charles to Cormac in adulthood. McCarthy did a hitch in the Air Force, where he became a constant reader. He dropped in and out of The University of Tennessee, but never graduated.

McCarthy's first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. In some odd form of continuity, McCarthy sent his manuscript to Random House, because it was the only publisher he knew. The manuscript landed on the desk of Albert Erskine who had been William Faulkner's editor at Random House until Faulkner's death in 1962. Erskine would edit McCarthy's novels for twenty years.

The New York Times reviewer, O. Prescott, called McCarthy "yet another Faulkner Disciple." The comparison was inevitable. McCarthy also had the ear for dialect that Faulkner had. And McCarthy hit all the notes of Southern Gothic with perfect pitch.

The Orchard Keeper is the story of John Wesley Rattner, the son of Kenneth Rattner, who is murdered by bootlegger Marion Sylder, who dumps him into a stripping pit on Uncle Ather Ownby's property where he tends an orchard.

In a growing cycle of irony, John Wesley forms relationships with both Uncle Ather and Sylder. Uncle Ather doesn't know whose body is in his orchard. Sylder doesn't know the body is that of John Wesley's father, and John Wesley comes to consider Sylder a hero as did he did his father. In the meantime, the law is after Sylder. Civilization is closing in on Uncle Ather's orchard, and Ather would just as soon civilization leave the world of nature as he knows and loves it. This is a violent coming of age novel. See http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/t... .

Outer Dark was published in 1968. It also is set in Appalachian East Tennessee. The story concerns the incestuous relationship of brother and sister, Culla and Rinthy Holmes, who have a child. Culla takes the child into the woods and tells Rinthy the child has died. Not so. The child is actually found abandoned in the forest by a traveling tinker. Rinthy sets out to find the child whom she believes to be with the tinker who had been at the Holmes cabin shortly before the child's birth. Culla sets out after Rinthy leaves. The book follows their individual paths. Culla is hounded by a group of three villains led by a fellow who seems awfully like the Judge in Blood Meridian: Or the Evening Redness in the West. As you can tell, this is not a happy little take on Rumpelstiltskin. Don't expect a happy ending. See http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/o... .

Next, welcome Child of God, appearing in 1973. Lester Ballard kills people and gratifies himself sexually with their bodies. Ballard is the child of God. You won't find a more depraved soul anywhere else. McCarthy strikes again, leaving the reader reeling from a relentless stream of unspeakable acts. See: http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/works/c... .

McCarthy completes his Southern quartet with Suttree , published in 1979. Suttree comes from a family with wealth. However, he's left that world behind, living on a houseboat on the river. The novel follows Suttree's encounters with the down and out, the lost, the outcasts, all the lowest of humanity you find along the river and the town along it.

By the time of Suttree's publication, McCarthy was long gone from Tennessee and down in El Paso where he transformed himself into the "western" writer as he is considered by many readers. McCarthy may believe it himself.

" You know about Mojave rattlesnakes?" Cormac McCarthy asks. The question has come up over lunch in Mesilla, N.M., because the hermitic author, who may be the best unknown novelist in America, wants to steer conversation away from himself, and he seems to think that a story about a recent trip he took near the Texas-Mexico border will offer some camouflage. A writer who renders the brutal actions of men in excruciating detail, seldom applying the anesthetic of psychology, McCarthy would much rather orate than confide. And he is the sort of silver-tongued raconteur who relishes peculiar sidetracks; he leans over his plate and fairly croons the particulars in his soft Tennessee accent.

"Mojave rattlesnakes have a neurotoxic poison, almost like a cobra's," he explains, giving a natural-history lesson on the animal's two color phases and its map of distribution in the West."

McCarthy's Venomous Fiction, New York Times, April 19, 1992, http://www.nytimes.com/1992/04/19/mag...

The article appeared a month before the publication of All the Pretty Horses. McCarthy completed the The Border Trilogy: All the Pretty Horses / The Crossing / Cities of the Plain. Published No Country for Old Men, and completed, for the time being, his "Western" phase.

McCarthy crossed over to the Modernist in The Road, winning the Pulitzer Prize for 2007.

In summary, McCarthy has written for over forty years, covering Southern Gothic, Western, and Modernist. That's no small feat.

From Wikipedia

McCarthy now lives in the Tesuque, New Mexico, area, north of Santa Fe, with his wife, Jennifer Winkley, and their son, John. He guards his privacy. In one of his few interviews (with The New York Times), McCarthy reveals that he is not a fan of authors who do not "deal with issues of life and death," citing Henry James and Marcel Proust as examples. "I don't understand them," he said. "To me, that's not literature. A lot of writers who are considered good I consider strange."[9] McCarthy remains active in the academic community of Santa Fe and spends much of his time at the Santa Fe Institute, which was founded by his friend, physicist Murray Gell-Mann.

Awards

1959, 1960 Ingram-Merrill awards
1965 Faulkner prize for a first novel for The Orchard Keeper[9]
1965 Traveling Fellowship from the American Academy of Arts and Letters
1969 Guggenheim Fellowship for creative writing
1981 MacArthur Fellowship[8]
1992 National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for All the Pretty Horses
2006 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction for The Road
2006 Believer Book Award, winner for The Road
2007 Pulitzer Prize for fiction for The Road
2008 PEN/Saul Bellow Award for Achievement in American Fiction, for a career whose writing "possesses qualities of excellence, ambition, and scale of achievement over a sustained career which place him or her in the highest rank of American literature."

Novels

The Orchard Keeper (1965) ISBN 0-679-72872-4
Outer Dark (1968) ISBN 0-679-72873-2
Child of God (1973) ISBN 0-679-72874-0
Suttree (1979) ISBN 0-679-73632-8
Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West (1985) ISBN 0-679-72875-9
All the Pretty Horses (1992) ISBN 0-679-74439-8
The Crossing (1994) ISBN 0-679-76084-9
Cities of the Plain (1998) ISBN 0-679-74719-2
No Country for Old Men (2005) ISBN 0-375-70667-4
The Road (2006) ISBN 0-307-38789-5
The Passenger (forthcoming)

Screenplays

The Gardener's Son (1976) ISBN 0-88001-481-4
The Counselor (forthcoming)

Plays

The Stonemason (1995) ISBN 978-0-679-76280-5
The Sunset Limited (2006) ISBN 0-307-27836-0

The writer acknowledges this post would not be possible without reference to, not only the cited works above, but also, The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture: Volume 9: Literature, and The Cormac McCarthy Society, http://www.cormacmccarthy.com .

Lawyer Stevens

One of my favorite authors.

Being a western man, his later works resonate with me more than the early, Appalachian stuff. Having said that, Child of God and The Orchard Keeper rank among my favorite books.

But No Country for Old Men is my favorite McCarthy novel. I love the blend of modern western and crime, the philosophical characters, and, of course, McCarthy's ability to portray vast and starkly majestic landscapes and the loneliness and reverence they engender. This is what drew me to McCarthy when I first read the border trilogy, and resonates with me big time.

Having watched many a sun rise above horizons fifty miles distant while the perfume of sage and creosote brush teased my nostrils and cooing doves mourned the death of night, I recognize a kindred sense of awe in McCarthy. He knows the tickle at the base of the spine I feel when, despite bloody peach skies and purple slanting curtains of rain that never reach the earth, I acknowledge the thorns and the venom. He too has been called home by a yipping chorus of coyotes.

Shaun wrote: "One of my favorite authors.

Being a western man, his later works resonate with me more than the early, Appalachian stuff. Having said that, Child of God and The Orchard Keeper rank among my favor..."

Shaun, A great post. I enjoyed it very much. "Bloody peach skies..." Good writing. It's going to be good having you here.

Who's Cormac McCarthy? (Just kidding!)

Lee wrote: "Who's Cormac McCarthy? (Just kidding!)"

Laughing big. Thanks for inviting Shaun to the group. Now that's serious.

Lawyer Stevens

Haha! Yeah, Shaun's a brilliant fella. He's pointed me towards a lot of wonderful books, McCarthy's Child of God being one of them. Thanks, Mike! Great group you have here!

Mike wrote: "Shaun, A great post. I enjoyed it very much. "Bloody peach skies..." Good writing. It's going to be good having you here. "

Thanks. I love discussing great books and the writing of them.

Lee wrote: "Haha! Yeah, Shaun's a brilliant fella. He's pointed me towards a lot of wonderful books, McCarthy's Child of God being one of them. Thanks, Mike! Great group you have here!"

Thanks, Lee. We're growing slowly, but picking up folks who seem very interested. I love the genre. Didn't seem to be an active group, so I cranked it up.

Shaun wrote: "Mike wrote: "Shaun, A great post. I enjoyed it very much. "Bloody peach skies..." Good writing. It's going to be good having you here. "

Thanks. I love discussing great books and the writing of t..."

I can tell. Keep up the good posts. It should start some good discussion. I appreciate it.

Great literature should spark discussion.

I loved the Tennessee novels of Cormac McCarthy. I admire the ones set in the west, but I don't love them like the ones set in Tennessee. I think Suttree and The Orchard Keeper are my favorite McCarthy novels. He's a fine writer.

G wrote: "I loved the Tennessee novels of Cormac McCarthy. I admire the ones set in the west, but I don't love them like the ones set in Tennessee. I think Suttree and The Orchard Keeper>i> are my favorite..."

I actually began my McCarthy reads with his later works, beginning with his western phase. Now, I'm returning to his Southern Quartet. Amazing. Simply Amazing.

Lawyer Stevens

I actually began my McCarthy reads with his later works, beginning with his western phase. Now, I'm returning to his Southern Quartet. Amazing. Simply Amazing.

Most did, including me. He wasn't widely known until All the Pretty Horses hit big, but wrote in relative obscurity, with a devoted literary and academic following for over twenty years. His earnings came from grants and awards instead of multi-book contracts and movie deals.

I see McCarthy as a writer's writer, and admire his dedication to craft and refusal to write other than what he writes, the way he writes it. I also like his no bullshit life philosophy. We can't escape or deny our own darkness, so look it in the eye and give it a nod, maybe even punch it in the nose, just to let it know that some of us don't fear ourselves.

I have only read Blood Meridian but couldnt finish it. He had very special prose style but the story,characters was lacking. I have read much better western storytellers.

I will try The Orchard Keeper in the near future and see if only his western was not to my taste.

I read The Road and enjoyed it for its dystopian, apocalyptical feel and its survival theme. McCarthy's writing style is really hard to adjust to, but I didn't mind it too much and actually enjoyed the book. I have All the Pretty Horses, but haven't read it yet. Maybe I'll pick it up and give it whirl if I have some time.

Franky wrote: "I read The Road and enjoyed it for its dystopian, apocalyptical feel and its survival theme. McCarthy's writing style is really hard to adjust to, but I didn't mind it too much and actually enjoyed..."

I have The Road somewhere but i am alittle suspicious when non-SF authors get acclaim for book like that. His style might fit a dystopian story well though.

What I've read of McCarthy is nightmare material, with violence so sensational, pornographic and absurdly poetic that to recall it in a dark room is to feel cold terror like a catch in the throat. The closing imagery in Blood Meridian of The Judge dancing naked, invoking the devil after he has tortured and sodomized another victim, is as horrific as anything I have ever read.

Jeb wrote: "What I've read of McCarthy is nightmare material, with violence so sensational, pornographic and absurdly poetic that to recall it in a dark room is to feel cold terror like a catch in the throat. ..."

Amen. Amen. I've returned to McCarthy's first southern works. I recently posted a review of The Orchard Keeper and am approximately half through Outer Dark. By the time I'm done with Child of God and Suttree, I may be in need of sabbatical.

Lawyer Stevens

Agree with Jeb. Nightmare material, absolutely.

Reading "Suttree" with this group is something that has made me rethink Southern Lit. I have never been particularly fond of the genre in the past.

Jessie wrote: "Reading "Suttree" with this group is something that has made me rethink Southern Lit. I have never been particularly fond of the genre in the past."

Jessie, I'm so happy to see your re-thinking of Southern Lit. There are so many worlds to discover, different voices, different settings. And this group has the knack of picking superb reads. I hope to see the group continue to grow and our group reads reflect new voices that serve as delightful discoveries for you and all our members.

Mike

Cormac McCarthy's The Road route through Eastern Tennessee and The Smokey Mountains?

http://web.utk.edu/~wmorgan/TR/route.htm

Cormac McCarthy Resources:

http://www.johnsepich.com/cormac_mcca...

For my taste in literature Cormac McCarthy is the greatest writer I have ever read. I started with All the Pretty Horses soon after it was published and eventually read all of them. Coming from an Australian perspective what Shaun wrote 'perfume of sage and creosote brush teased my nostrils and cooing doves mourned the death of night' resonated with me. Despite the fact we don't have creosote (at least where I have lived) or coyotes etc the landscapes Shaun alludes to are very much a part of the Australian experience.
I'm just about to write a review/personal essay on All the pretty Horses for a creative non-fiction course I'm doing and how it affected a twenty-something year old on the other side of the planet to the extent that I'm not sure if I love the book so much because it appealed to my sense of values and aesthetics or if it in fact had a major role in creating them. I'll post it here when it is finished if anyone is interested. It's due beginning of October.
I have penchant for Southern Gothic as well so McCarthy wins on all fronts for me!
Thanks for a wonderful thread everybody, I always love to discuss any aspect of the great mans work.

Dougal, I just read this on the Cormac McCarthy Society webpage www.cormacmccarthy.com

Rick Wallach posted:

"I’ve been contacted by a graduate student and professor from the University of Western Sydney in Australia about the possibility of participating in a conference there in 2014. I’ve responded affirmatively and suggested that if they’re going to put one together they do so during our northern summer, when airfares to Australia are at their lowest. Sydney winters are a bit like late Autumns in the north, not generally too cold except on rare occasions. I’ve been there in early June and there were still plenty of shirtsleeve days. It’s a terrific city. I’d like input from US and Euro-Cormackians about how enthusiastically they would embrace the notion of a conference that far afield. Personally, I’m quite certain I would attend – I’ve been gestating a paper on McCarthy and Patrick White for maybe 18 years or so."

I have been reading excerpts from McCarthy's letters in the Wittliff Collection at Texas State University. I found and interesting quote.

Wollmer (a book collector friend of CM) asked if CM has spent time in the parts of Mexico that he writes about. He answered:

"I spent several years in the country described. I’ve taken the train to Mochos a couple of times and it is a great trip…”

http://www.thewittliffcollections.txs...

And this:
"McCarthy’s brother and wife visited and they went rafting down the Rio Grande “Very beautiful country. It rained in the night and the river came up 5 feet and we brought out refugees with us…”"

It amazes me that I can find original, letters from Cormac McCarthy to friends on the internet!

Cheers Zorro, thats something I would go to Western Sydney for...not many other things would get me there!

http://www.jamesfrancotv.com/tags/Chi...

James Franco is directing Child of God movie.

http://www.cormacmccarthy.com/

fyi

Cormac McCarthy Society Announces Impending Publication of First Standalone Trade Volume

You Would Not Believe What Watches: Suttree and Cormac McCarthy's Knoxville
"Cormac McCarthy's masterpiece, SUTTREE, is an autobiographical novel, bent to suit the author's literary ambitions, written in a lush poetic vernacular and quasi-biblical prose. It lends itself to a wide variety of philosophical interpretations and is demonstratively laced with the quirky artifacts of Knoxville's historical past at the same time."

"This volume, YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT WATCHES, by a bevy of the best McCarthy scholars on the planet, illuminates the heart of the novel as well as the peripheral fringes. It takes on both McCarthy's grand ideas and its little-known facets, such as the arcane but extremely interesting histories of the many characters which pass through the novel."

http://www.diarioinformacion.com/cult...

An interview with Cormac McCarthy (I think he is in Spain for the making of part of the movie The Counselor.)

He is so much more relaxed here than he was with Oprah.

Why it was an American’s turn (for a Nobel in Literature)

http://www.foyles.co.uk/Public/Biblio...

"Instead it is Cormac McCarthy who I feel deserved the Nobel Prize for Literature 2012. His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, was published in 1965. Most recently The Road won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 2006. In the 1990s he wrote a trilogy of novels - All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing and Cities of the Plain - the first being my personal favourite. In the tale of young men traversing the wilds of the Southern states and Northern Mexico there is something timeless in his work. He has his precursors, notably William Faulkner and to a lesser extent, Ernest Hemingway, but builds on this tradition. His is a stark realism, imbued with mysticism, bouts of violence and absolutely no hope of redemption. The sparse dialogue always rings true.


Most importantly he does not just present a tale of American life - McCarthy is equally concerned with wider questions. How do we define ourselves when the world we know is changing so quickly around us? In what does our salvation lie, if indeed it is to be found at all? By choosing Cormac McCarthy, I'm presenting a body of work which has no let downs in it - every novel is an individual work of art and part of an oeuvre that has no equal in contemporary letters. For me, he is the most compelling writer alive today and the necessary recipient of the biggest prize in literature."

Cormac McCarthy's THE ROAD up for Best Novel of the Century

The links are here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland...

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/...

Six authors from the past century have been shortlisted for the best ever winner of Britain’s oldest book award.
Angela Carter, Graham Greene, James Kelman, Cormac McCarthy, Muriel Spark and Caryl Phillips are in the running for the James Tait Black accolade.

The Best of the Best of the James Tait Black Prize will honour the best loved novel to have won the award since it was created in 1919.

The winning book will be announced in December.

The award has been created to celebrate the 250th anniversary of English literature study at the University of Edinburgh.

The shortlist was selected by academics and students of literature at the university, and the winner will be chosen by a judging panel including broadcaster Kirsty Wark and award-winning author and writer in residence at the university, Alan Warner.

The six books competing for the prize are: Nights At The Circus by Angela Carter; The Heart Of The Matter by Graham Greene; A Disaffection by James Kelman; The Road by Cormac McCarthy, Crossing The River by Caryl Phillips and The Mandlebaum Gate by Muriel Spark.

Regius Professor Greg Walker, chair of the James Tait Black Prizes, said: “This best of the best award is a wonderful opportunity to revisit some of the best writers in the literary canon.

I've read The Border Trilogy, No Country for Old Men, and The Road. I liked No Country for Old Men the best. The others were interesting reading but, in my opinion, not great literature. I didn't understand all the hype about The Road. After reading the novel, I thought McCarthy needed to do a few more revisions before releasing the book. The Orchard Keeper is on my list of books to read.

I find it interesting that Cormac's popularity seems to have risen along with his style of writing transition. "No Country for Old Men" was as if it were written by a different author compared with, eg, Blood Meridian." Perhaps Cormac first thought he was Faulkner then realized he was really Steinbeck.

Was thinking about how much the beginning of "As I Lay Dying" affected me when I tried to read it years ago and C. McC's writing in "Outer Dark." Though I appreciated the skill of C. McC's writing and thought it compared somewhat to Faulkner's, I never once felt the emotion that Faulkner's work evoked.

Mike wrote: "Was thinking about how much the beginning of "As I Lay Dying" affected me when I tried to read it years ago and C. McC's writing in "Outer Dark." Though I appreciated the skill of C. McC's writing ..."

That's an interesting comment because Faulkner has always left me cold. I've only read the one McCarthy book, that we read here (Suttree), and it was a Tennessee book. I immediately felt a connection. I'm not sure I'd have the same reaction for the western novels.

The Counselor is an upcoming movie based on a screenplay by McCarthy, with stars like Penelope Cruz and Brad Pitt, and directed by Ridley Scott.

I've read McCarthy's books, and I think they're overrated. At first, he seemed a little mysterious, like Salinger. Now he's selling out to Hollywood, and that lessens my respect for his work.

Cormac McCarthy retweeted on Twitter one of my Goodreads status updates where I was reading The Road :) It happened a few weeks ago, but I just now saw it.

My hubby would never admit to be this excited but he just saw The Cormac McCarthy in our hotel lobby. Once in a lifetime spotting. I thought he only got this excited when he sees me and our daughter, haha!

Laura wrote: "My hubby would never admit to be this excited but he just saw The Cormac McCarthy in our hotel lobby. Once in a lifetime spotting. I thought he only got this excited when he sees me and our daughte..."

You're too funny, Laura! LOL

The photo is from a second sighting where josh got brave enough to say hello. Unfortunately I didn't get to witness in person.

Laura wrote: "My hubby would never admit to be this excited but he just saw The Cormac McCarthy in our hotel lobby. Once in a lifetime spotting. I thought he only got this excited when he sees me and our daughte..."

You never know who you will meet!

I didn't even believe josh at first because McCarthy is such a recluse. I was happy for josh. Now if he can get the two books in our room signed, haha! Note:they're library books

Neat!! Those would be the two most famous library books in town if he did sign them!

Neat!! Those would be the two most famous library books in town if he did sign them!

I'll bet those library books will "get lost" and never be returned :) It might be worth paying the fine.

My ethics would be tested.......which is kinda Cormac's point isn't it?

Hmm, never thought of that! Wink, wink! Just to clarify, it was a short convo and no books were signed but if I had been present I might have had him sign my body. Josh did shake his hand. And he did ask josh where he was from so a plug for Tennessee!