Audio-book Review
By Chet Yarbrough
(Blog:awalkingdelight)
Website: chetyarbrough.blog
Cormac McCarthy (A Legacy Revisited)
Author: Tracy Daugherty
Narrated by: Graham Winton
Tracy Daughterty (American author, Professor of English and Creative Writing at Oregon State University.)
Cormac McCarthy.
One thinks of Cormac McCarthy as a recluse, but Tracy Daughterty’s biography shows him to be a young boy who is a charmer and high school cutup who outshines the intelligence of his classmates. Living and being raised in Tennessee, he lives a life of an upper middleclass son who has a troubled relationship with his father. He begins his writing life early in his high school years, graduates from the University of Tennessee, and joins the U.S. Air Force in 1953. He leaves the Air Force in 1957, returns to Tennessee, and begins writing seriously in his twenties.
Cormac McCarthy’s first published novel.
At age 31, McCarthy has his first novel (The Orchard Keeper) published in 1965. It is not a best seller, but it receives praise from accomplished writers like Ralph Ellison. It is not until he is near 51 years of age that literary success for his writing is achieved. “Blood Meridian” is published. His fame and notoriety grow. Daughterty infers McCarthy’s father read everything his son wrote and admired his son but never resolves their broken relationship. When Cormac’s father dies, he chooses not to attend his funeral.
Even though the Orchard Keeper outsold Blood Meridian, this is the novel that gave McCarthy the reputation as a great writer.
Before “Blood Meridian”, McCarthy had written “Outer Dark”, “Child of God”, and “Suttree” which were published without much acclaim. Despite Daugherty’s characterization of McCarthy as a highly intelligent writer, he did not become widely famous until “All the Pretty Horses” is published in 1992. Literary success is accompanied by substantial financial success.
Daugherty suggests McCarthy’s personal life is troubled by selfishness and his obsession to become a great writer.
McCarthy neglects his wives and family because of his driven desire to be a great writer. His first marriage to Lee Holleman lasts for two years with one son, both of which he abandons. His second wife, Anne DeLisle, lasts for over ten years but his literary ambition, as it had in his first marriage, gets in the way of the relationship. McCarthy marries two more times but his growing reputation as one of America’s greatest novelists is elusive. He achieves the sobriquet of “great writer” with “Blood Meridian” published in 1985. It is considered a masterpiece of historical fiction alongside works of writers like Herman Melville and William Faulkner.
Cormac McCarthy as a young man when “Suttree” is published.
Goals are based on plans for achievement.
McCarthy’s reputation becomes legendary after the success of the “Border Trilogy” and “All the Pretty Horses”. His critical acclaim is nationally and internationally recognized. He is perceived as a recluse, an outsider, and a literary hermit. In Daugherty’s opinion, McCarthy was a disciplined, and dedicated artist whose public image hides the truth of his peripatetic and storied life.
Daugherty argues McCarthy captures an American life characterized by violence, greed, love, and achievement of a singular focused goal. McCarthy’s goal is to be a great writer. He transforms the experiences of his own life with intensity and reality that makes his writing unforgettable. Having recently listened to “The Road”, one can see how McCarthy regrets his failure as a father. It almost seems “The Road” is a kind of apology for his neglect as a father. McCarthy’s dogged pursuit to become a great writer is based on an obsession. The written characters he develops, and life experiences noted in this biography are clearly evident in his books. Only McCarthy would know if the cost of many marriages, his estrangement from his father, and the neglect of his first son (he had a second son with a future wife) were worth the achievement of his goal. McCarthy dies in 2023.
What Daugherty’s biography shows is that success as a great writer mattered the most to Cormac McCarthy.
