The Facts
Cormac McCarthy — acclaimed US author of works such as Blood Meridian, The Road, and No Country for Old Men — has died at the age of 89. His publisher announced Wednesday that he passed away in his home in Santa Fe of natural causes.
McCarthy, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his post-apocalyptic novel The Road (2006), was famed for writing that included dark subjects such as arson, necrophilia, and cannibalism.
The Spin
Narrative A
McCarthy's work reckoned with post-apocalyptic landscapes, with the boundaries of human invention and existence, and inspired readers with a nihilist terror. Using prose to reflect the horror of the postwar decades, McCarthy encapsulated visions of an Age of Aftermath, employing desolate landscapes to throw into relief the existential darkness present in all human beings.
Narrative B
Despite frequently being accused of nihilism, the darkness in McCarthy's writing does not detract from the light of his novels — present in the depictions of love, devotion, and friendship, but also in the beauty of the text itself. His legacy is not merely one of nihilism but of the significance of the human experience and the power of articulating all the beauty, humor, and terror of life in prose.
