Cormac McCarthy - by Tracy Daugherty (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

A biography of the late Pulitzer Prize-winning American author Cormac McCarthy, from Tracy Daugherty, the New York Times bestselling author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist biography Larry McMurtry: A Life.

Cormac McCarthy is hailed as one of America's greatest novelists. In his body of work, the nation's story is told in incomparably vivid shades of violence, greed, and love. And yet, most of his personal story has been largely untold--until now.

Early in life, McCarthy chose to devote himself almost exclusively to his literary pursuits. Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited movingly details what this choice cost him in his family relationships, his marriages, and his friendships. Mentally and physically restless, often solitary and yet gregarious and charming, McCarthy lived as wildly, complexly, and close to the bone as any of his characters, journeying often to remote locations, communing deeply with the natural world, and traversing intricate emotional and psychological terrain. In his novels, he reported wisdom hard-learned through harsh experience and intense observation.

With precision and grace, Cormac McCarthy: A Legacy Revisited recounts his story from poverty to riches, obscurity to worldwide acclaim, and unveils the man behind the myth in a must-read biography for both lifelong fans and new McCarthy readers alike.

Review Quotes

"A revealing biography of the enigmatic Southwest literary sage... Daugherty balances the elements of McCarthy's peculiar genius with well-reported portraits of him as a private yet adventurous figure... A well-told story." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Vivid and sweeping... An astute and penetrating portrait of a literary great." --Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Exceptional... Daugherty balances scholarly rigor with narrative force, making this accessible without sacrificing intellectual depth and humanizing a legend without diminishing the mystery." --Booklist (starred review)

"Tracy Daugherty, well on his way to establishing himself as the best literary biographer of the 21st century, has made an extraordinary capture of one of American literature's most elusive subjects. In the case of Cormac McCarthy, to show the man beside the myth, distinguishing one from the other with such impeccable clarity, is truly a striking achievement. McCarthy was a skillful self-mythologizer, whose efforts along those lines have been amplified for decades by teams of devotées obsessed with the man through his work. Daugherty shows us plainly what parts of the myth (a good many) were in fact true, while uncovering many more fascinating and improbable facts of McCarthy's career that never made it into the myth at all. The whole of the life story revealed here will be enough and plenty to satisfy (and sometimes dismay) McCarthy's readership. And Daugherty's take on McCarthy's body of work is just as thorough, just as sound, and sometimes just as surprising." --Madison Smartt Bell, author of Child of Light

"The enigma revealed. Tracy Daugherty's biography of one of our most mysterious and iconic novelists reads like a novel itself in all its darkness, adventure, loss and redemption. One of the most thrilling biographies I've ever come across." --T.C. Boyle, bestselling author

Praise for Larry McMurtry: A Life

"An insightful literary biography of the celebrated author written with brio and humor" --The Pulitzer Prize Committee, on Finalist Larry McMurtry: A Life

"Vastly entertaining... This is the first comprehensive biography of McMurtry, who died in 2021 at the age of 84... [Daugherty] is the right person for this job...He rakes his material into a story that has movement; he's a good reader of the novels; he has an eye for anecdote and the telling quote; he builds toward extended set pieces." --The New York Times

"A definitive life of the novelist/bookseller/scriptwriter/curmudgeon of interest to any McMurtry fan." --Kirkus (starred review)

"Literary biographer Daugherty blends authoritative research with resplendent prose, providing absorbing detail to illuminate how McMurtry's childhood, academic career, domestic life, and friendships shaped his personality and work. This flowing, even avuncular portrait definitively situates McMurtry's oeuvre in the American canon." --Booklist, starred

"This is worth saddling up for." --Publishers Weekly

"In Larry McMurtry: A Life, a very readable and even impressive biography, Tracy Daugherty discusses all of McMurtry's books with both authority and affection. Mr. Daugherty is also absorbing when he writes about McMurtry's personal life and his nonwriting literary life, which were melded into one." --Wall Street Journal

"Entertaining." --The New Yorker

"Daugherty's diligently constructed biography will provide memories for those who lived in McMurtry's era and recall well his novels, along with the movies and series that sprang from them." --bookreporter

About the Author

Born and raised in Texas, TRACY DAUGHERTY is the author of six novels, six short story collections, a memoir, a book of personal essays, a collection of essays on writing, a novella collection, and six literary biographies. His 2009 biography of Donald Barthelme, Hiding Man, was a New York Times and New Yorker Notable Book; his 2015 biography of Joan Didion, The Last Love Song was a New York Times Bestseller; and his 2023 biography of Larry McMurtry, Larry McMurtry: A Life, was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. His work has been recognized by the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. At Oregon State University he helped found the MFA Program in Creative Writing.