CORMAC McCARTHY, ANOTHER SHY IRISHMAN

Posted on St Patrick’s Day, 17 MARCH 2015;

Cormac McCarthy is one of our greatest living writers. He surfaced for many readers after two of his later books: The Road, and No Country for Old Men. Both were made into films.

When he was younger and winning the National Book Award (All the Pretty Horses), his ex-wife said that they lived in a pig barn in Tennessee. He would receive occasional offers by mail for teaching positions at leading universities and tear them up. “It would be tinned beans for another 3 months and no heat in the barn,” she recalled. “But his time was like gold for him. It was not for sale.” (My paraphrase.)

His earlier books like Child of God, and The Crossing, are among my all-time favorites in fiction.He rarely grants interviews, but I found this one in the Paris Review. It appears to be sarcastic — I wondered if he actually speaks like this and at first doubted it. But then I reconsidered and decided he actually has the ability to talk in this kind of prose. I still don’t know if this is made up, however. It is funny, either way: http://www.theparisreview.org/the-art-of-fiction-no-223-cormac-mccarthy — Mark Sullivan