Cormac McCarthy (1933 – 2023)

I’m a little unsure of what to say here.  I’ve seen some of my musical inspirations pass throughout the years.  From Kurt Cobain, Layne Staley, Chris Cornell, Merle Haggard, Lux Interior, David Bowie, Lou Reed… I could keep going.  But, with the exception of J.D. Salinger, my life has not overlapped with any of my favorite authors.  At least not in any way I would have been able to acknowledge it.  There are living authors I enjoy, but the legends are mostly in the past.

The writing of Cormac McCarthy has probably had more impact on my writing (of words) than any other person.  His comfort with the darkness of life.  His refusal to color within the lines of proper grammar.  His understanding of human nature.  He tells the stories that are far scarier than any Stephen King novel because his stories are human. 

I haven’t gotten to The Passenger or Stella Maris yet, they’re still sitting next to my desk, but otherwise, I’m familiar with his entire bibliography.  I love his early work, based in East Tennessee and I love his later work based in the West.  They’re different, but the stories are essentially the same, because they’re human stories.  My roots are in East Tennessee and I’ve lived most of my adult life in the West, so I know these places and these characters.  Sometimes, more so than I care to admit.

I would have to say the two works that have meant the most to me over the years are Child of God and The Road. 

Child of God is the epitome of Southern Gothic as a genre.  Lester Ballard is the definition of the grotesque. However, I can’t help but have sympathy for him throughout the book.  The loneliness, the “otherness” and the depths to which people will sink when they are on their own, outcast from their community.  There are no “good guys” in this story.  People doing things they shouldn’t be doing.  Lester doing things he shouldn’t be doing.  The town determined to see him swing at the end of a rope.  No sympathy.  No grace or forgiveness, only vengeance and violence.  There’s a morality tale here if you can swallow your pride enough to understand that you could be any character in this book given the right circumstances.  Most people cannot do this.

The Road in some ways is the anthesis of Child of God.  The world is the same.  Evil lurks around every corner.  The Man has goodness in him, perhaps not of him, but in him.  His love for The Boy (his son) surpasses all other human instincts and desires he has.  His singular focus in life is to protect The Boy.  Even after She (the wife) could not go on any longer.  This is a sacrificial love.  This is perseverance.  This is further proof of what every human is capable of given the circumstances.  This is the fact that sometimes killing for someone represents a greater love than dying for them. 

McCarthy never craved fame or fortune.  In fact, he seemingly avoided them at all cost.  While I am sure he died with a healthy bank account, it certainly wasn’t always that way.  In the early days he lived off grants in Appalachian shacks with no electricity or running water (remember typewriters kids?).  He wrote because he had to.  He was an artist, interested far more in creating art than the commerce of selling it. 

He would have been ninety next month.  That’s a fair amount of years for a life by any definition.  But, the world has lost a great artist.  A literary legend has passed on to wherever he is now.  Hopefully his work, which by no means caters to the utopian dreams of certain gatekeepers, will stick around to remind generations to come just how depraved we really are.