Cormac McCarthy, author of ‘No Country for Old Men’ and ‘Blood Meridian,’ dies at 89
Cormac McCarthy, the acclaimed fiction writer whose books were regarded as American masterpieces by critics and legions of fans but who refused to offer insight into what had inspired them or what they might mean, has died.
Widely regard as one of America’s greatest living writers, McCarthy died on Tuesday of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, N.M., according to his publisher, Knopf. He was 89.
Often set in the backwoods of Tennessee or the great wide open of the Old West, McCarthy’s novels took violence to a nearly hallucinogenic level as he spooled out stories of murderous bounty hunters, drug deals gone fatally wrong and life in a post-apocalyptic netherworld.
His work — especially his early novels set in the South — was sometimes compared to that of William Faulkner or Flannery O’Connor. During the course of his career, he won virtually every meaningful award, including a Pulitzer Prize.
While his early novels won praise from critics, they also sold poorly. But his standing in the literary world soared with the 1992 publication of “All the Pretty Horses,” the first book in what came to be known
