Stephen King among those to pay tribute to late literary great Cormac McCarthy

Award-winning US novelist, Cormac McCarthy has passed away at the age of 89. The novelist, who is perhaps best known for 2005’s No Country For Old Men, died at his Santa Fe home of natural causes.

Widely viewed as one of literary greats, McCarthy’s 2006 post-apocalyptic novel, The Road, was adapted for the silver screen in 2009, whilst the novel won 2006’s Pulitzer Prize Award.

McCarthy published other critically-acclaimed books like All The Pretty Horses and Blood Meridian. His 2005 best-seller which was also translated onto the silver screen starring Javier Bardem, Tommy Lee Jones and Josh Brolin, swept 2007’s Academy Awards, winning best picture.

Famously private, the novelist never appeared on the red carpet, and rarely gave interviews. A rare exception was made for Oprah Winfrey in 2007, whom he told: "I don't think (interviews) are good for your head.”

“If you spend a lot of time thinking about how to write a book, you probably shouldn't be thinking about it, you probably should be doing it."

Born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20th, 1933, McCarthy was one of five other siblings in an Irish Catholic family. He served in the Air Force during the 1950s, and married twice before the 60s were over. His first marriage was to Lee Holleman. The two met at college and had a son together. He later married English singer Anne DeLisle, whom he separated from in 1976.

After spending some time in Europe, he moved to Tennessee, before moving onto El Paso, before settling in Santa Fe.

His debut novel, The Orchard Keeper, which was set in rural Tennessee, was first published in 1965. Despite generating a mostly positive response, McCarthy did not encounter commercial success with his other earlier works like, Child of God and Outer Dark, and survived on writers' grants.

1985’s Blood Meridian, although garnering little attention at the time of publication, the novel is now considered to be McCarthy’s first truly great novel.

Having been married three times over his lifetime, McCarthy divorced his third wife, Jennifer Winkley in 2006. He has left behind two children, Cullen, born in 1962 and John in 1998.

Since the annonuncemnt of his passing, the literary world has turned to grieve their loss, with Stephen King leading tributes on Twitter stating, “Cormac McCarthy, maybe the greatest American novelist of my time, has passed away at 89. He was full of years and created a fine body of work, but I still mourn his passing.”

Cormac McCarthy, maybe the greatest American novelist of my time, has passed away at 89. He was full of years and created a fine body of work, but I still mourn his passing.

— Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 13, 2023

American poet, Joseph Fasano also took to the social media platform to share his thoughts:

When a great artist dies, there is the moment when the world understands it will never again have a new creation from that mind, that heart, that vast soul. It is a loss beyond measure, but what that soul has left us is a gift beyond time.

Rest in everything, Cormac McCarthy pic.twitter.com/kM3mVIIw1Z

— Joseph Fasano (@Joseph_Fasano_) June 13, 2023

Novelist and literary critic Kirn, remember McCarthy’s beautiful final passage in The Road:

The end of The Road by Cormac McCarthy, as beautiful a paragraph as has ever been made by hand pic.twitter.com/za1Bj67iLn

— Walter Kirn (@walterkirn) June 14, 2023

Publishing house Alfred A.Knopf also paid tribute to the late writer, taking to Twitter to write:

“Keep a little fire burning; however small, however hidden.”
—Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy died today of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was eighty-nine years old. pic.twitter.com/5Xl9MH5Nx2

— Alfred A. Knopf (@AAKnopf) June 13, 2023

Watch No Country For Old Men winning Best Picture at the 2007 Academy Awards below: