Cormac McCarthy

Rick Wallach (University of Miami)
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Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023) was an American novelist, playwright and screenwriter. He was the author of two published short stories, twelve novels, two plays and two produced screenplays. Several works, including the unproduced screenplay

Whales and Men

, remain unpublished. At the time of his death he was working on a screenplay of his fifth novel,

Blood Meridian

.

He is best known for his dark, violent novels, which are set either in his childhood region of Appalachia or in the border lands of the southwestern United States and Mexico, and most recently for his Pulitzer Prize-winning apocalyptic novel The Road (2006). His vision of human nature and destiny is relentlessly pessimistic. Even so, his characters occasionally redeem themselves, or are redeemed to some extent, by gestures of

4975 words

Citation: Wallach, Rick. "Cormac McCarthy". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 15 June 2012; last revised 15 June 2023. [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3026, accessed 19 April 2024.]

3026 Cormac McCarthy 1 Historical context notes are intended to give basic and preliminary information on a topic. In some cases they will be expanded into longer entries as the Literary Encyclopedia evolves.

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