Author

  








          The Author Cormac McCarthy was born in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 20, 1933. As a child McCarthy's formative experiences have shared their place influencing a number of key themes in Cormac's works. Themes like peregrination, the human affinity for bloodshed, and issues in father-son relations  hips have led Cormac McCarthy's works to revel in the shadows of human nature. 
        McCarthy grew up in the Catholic church, attended Catholic high school, and enrolled at The University of Tennessee in 1951. He completed only one year when he then deciding to enlist in the U.S. Air Force. He served four years in the military before returning to the University of Tennessee in 1957. Back in his studies he found himself slowly gravitating towards fiction writing. After publishing two stories in the campus literary magazine he won an Ingram-Merrill Foundation grant for creative writing in both 1959 and 1960. Convinced of his potential for success, he left the university in 1960 to pursue his writing career.

        McCarthy moved to Chicago and got a job as a mechanic to support himself as he worked on his first novel. Their he met a woman, Lee Holleman, who became his wife and whom he had a child. McCarthy and his wife moved back to Tennessee, however the two struggled to keep a relationship and their marriage quickly fell apart. These troubles did not seem to distract McCarthy from his works when McCarthy published his debut novel in 1965, The Orchard Keeper. He was recognized with the William Faulkner Award. The novel, published by Random House, was edited by William Faulkner's editor, Albert Erskine.

        Through his career, McCarthy proved himself a true expert in writing fictional novels. The more books he wrote the bigger his fame became and the more distinct his style became. Known for writing about dark themes, McCarthy has no reason to apologize. In a rare interview with the New York Times, he seemingly rejects not only the possibility for harmonious living, but also the idea that human beings can seek to change their aggressive instincts: "There is no such thing as life without bloodshed. The notion that the species can be improved in some way, that everyone could live in harmony, is really a dangerous idea. Those who are afflicted with this notion are the first ones to give up their souls, their freedom. Your desire that it be that way will enslave you and make your life vacuous" (New York Times Magazine, 1992). Accepting that people have their faults, that is, points us away from unachievable ideals and leaves us free to be ourselves as we really are. This kind of insight Carmac McCarthy posses truly drives his success as a writer.

        
Camac McCarthy's, The Road and films:
        Carmac McCarthy published The Road in 2007 which was awarded the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction in 2006 and, in 2007, the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Since then, the novel has been made in to a film and released in 2009. McCarthy's 5th book, Blood Meridian, also was going to be made into a film, however its production was halted for an unknown reason and remains uncompleted.

        Rarely granting interviews, being relatively silent about his work, McCarthy did concede to his first television interview with Oprah in June 2007, after she named The Road as her April 2007 Book Club selection. McCarthy currently lives north of Santa Fe with his wife Jennifer and their son, and he satisfies his interest in science by spending time as a research fellow at the Santa Fe Institute.