Cormac McCarthy for much of his life let his books do the talking for him. The acclaimed American writer largely eschewed the normal duties of being a writing celebrity by giving few interviews and living an intensely private life. But behind the enigmatic public faade was a life of aspiration, conflicted relationships, itinerancy, and a near-fanatical devotion to his art.
A new book by Tracy Daugherty, Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited, explores the writer behind the reputation. To be released on October 6, this 528 page biography recounts the writer’s journey from poverty and obscurity to international fame and sheds light on the personal toll that dedication to his literature.
Daugherty treats McCarthy as one of the greatest writers of his time, while also highlighting his complex personality. Rather than emphasizing only the novels that made McCarthy’ name, the biography explores how his personality and difficult decisions through his personal life impacted his writing career. His willingness to put literature first was sometimes detrimental to his family life, relationship, and friendship.
That tension is a crucial underpinning to the whole of McCarthy. His novels often locate people in extreme locations, where violence, survival, and ethical questions are paramount. His life, while of course most unlike his fiction, was also known for an eagerness to defy societal norms and succeptance to dual, often contradictory ambitions; Daugherty presents us with the portrait of a man who could be aloof, even a little reclusive, but who could also be good humoured, inquisitive, and a self confessed ‘people person’.
McCarthy’s oeuvre was not an overnight triumph. His first publications achieved modest commercial success, and the major works that people now cite as evidence ofhis great talent Yes took a while to receive widespread reader support. A perfect example of this is Blood Meridian. Despite mounting critical praise, the novel took a while to establish itself commercially, but gained instantly in esteem after it became one of the most influential american novels of its period.
The second breakthrough came with All the Pretty Horses in 1992. It became his first New York Times bestseller and led to a wider exposure for his work. Later publications like No Country for Old Men or The Road extended the scope of his readership far beyond the circle of already-initiated readers of his older novels.
Another factor that biography addresses as significant to McCarthy’s formative years as a writer is place. It is noted that he initially had very strong tie to Tennessee and the South before Western relocation, when the terrain of Texas and the Southwest began to play an important role in his conception of the world, as evidenced in the shifting locations and themes of his fiction.
For those readers curious about the process of writing, Daugherty’s will have another appeal. McCarthy was known for having an almost unique dread of the performative aspect of writing, and his toiling devotion to the craft was often more intense than his desire for facile publicity. As a result, the author became notorious as much for resisting the mechanisms of fame as for any other reason.
