Most great writers approach their golden years with such skill, discipline and so much to say that they keep writing just for the fun of it, to tell great stories, or to just show off. Steinbeck did. Faulkner did. Hemingway could not, and it drove him to suicide.
After their critical success, and the confidence it can bring, these writers unleash their formidable talents and just let it fly. The book or the story is just the vehicle for the prose and the wisdom they have to share.
Author Cormac McCarthy wrote such epic early stories as “No Country for Old Men,” and the “All the Pretty Horses” trilogy. His sparse and poetic prose, without much punctuation, can make a story out of nothing, but when he has a story to tell, watch out. You will want to keep reading for the zingers on every page and paragraph. This often makes his classic literature seem subtle and sublime. The story is not that important, and it doesn’t matter what he writes, it is how he writes it and what he says on, and in-between, every line.
McCarthy did some of his best writing in his last two books “Passenger” and “Stella Maris,” which were released within six weeks of each other in 2022 and before his death in 2023. They follow Bobby and Alicia Western, two siblings whose father helped develop the atomic bomb, for better or worse. Bobby is the tortured loner in “Passenger,” running from generational guilt and a lover's loss. Alicia is the tormented but brilliant little sister staying voluntarily at the Stella Maris mental institution. She is being interviewed by her psychiatrist for the entire second book, in a format that seems gimmicky at first but genuine in the end.
The dialogue is terse, without the parenthetical he-said she-said interruptions of punctuation and qualifiers. The conversation is snappy and smart, almost the way people wish they could really talk. Segments on math and science interconnect effortlessly with real people conversations with grandma and grandpa or flirtatious scenes with a waitress or an old friend. We write what we know, and everything is at least subconsciously autobiographical, so what else could Cormac write?
A philosopher recommended the first book to me; a psychologist recommended the second. There is something for everyone. In the end, it is not what you say but how you say it.
“Passenger” and “Stella Maris” are available at our public libraries along with most great American writers like Faulkner, Steinbeck and Hemingway.
