the work of the American writer in five essential books

Cormac McCarthy is a major author of American literature. He experienced success late in life, notably with The road And No Country for Old Men. Two of his novels were published this year in France, after long years of silence. A look back at his work in five remarkable novels.

1“The road”

A father and son walk down the road in a devastated world covered in ash and corpses. They push a cart full of miscellaneous objects. They advance towards the southern coasts, terrorized by hordes of cannibals who attack the survivors. Will the father and the son keep their humanity? The road (Editions de L’Olivier, 2008) is interested in the father-son relationship, survival in a hostile environment and violence. Cormac McCarthy questions American society. This post-apocalyptic philosophical fable was praised by the creek. The book received the 2007 Pulitzer Prize. It was adopted on screen by John Hillcoat in 2009 with actor Viggo Mortensen in the lead role.

2“No Country for Old Men”

Thirty-something Llewelyn Moss discovers an original morning sight near the Mexican border: corpses, a dying man, weapons, heroin, and more than two million dollars in cash. Greed takes over. He pockets the money, setting off a chain reaction. Killers, including a psychopath played by Javier Bardem in the excellent adaptation by the Coen brothers, set off in pursuit of him to recover the loot. Moss and his girlfriend try to keep the money and survive. No, this country is not for the old man, title in French, (L’Olivier editions, 2007), is a charge against the consumer society that devours its own children. The film, critically acclaimed and a big theatrical success, won four Oscars.

3“Such pretty horses”

Cormac McCarthy continues to explore post-war America with this black work. Such pretty horses (Actes Sud, 1993), awarded several prizes in the United States, is an initiatory journey of two American teenagers who leave their Texas to settle in Mexico. Nothing goes as planned. Their ride turns into a nightmare. This book, which is part of the Borderlands Trilogyis also bathed in violence, inherent in America according to Cormac McCarthy. Such pretty horses was also adapted for the cinema by Billy Bob Thornton in 2000, with Matt Damon in the lead role.

4“The passenger”

Sixteen years later The roadCormac McCarthy made his comeback in 2022 with two novels, The passenger And Stella Maris (editions of the Olivier, 2023). The passenger (Editions de l’Olivier, 2023) is a novel about uprooting. We find the signature of Cormac McCarthy in each page: an individual facing society. Here the images are strong: the body of a young girl abandoned in the snow, the wreckage of a plane stranded at the bottom of the water, a man on the run. His character, Bobby Western, drags along his malaise. Who is Bobby Western? A mathematician and a physicist, two disciplines he abandoned after the death of his sister Alicia, who mysteriously disappeared ten years earlier. Bobby Western is a deep-sea diver who sees his daily life wavering. The novel is introspective, a reflection on a fleeting present. The passenger, a personal and audacious work.

5“Stella Maris”

This is Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel. Set ten years before The passenger, whose gray areas it illuminates, Stella Maris is a one-way trip to the other side of the mirror. The book focuses on Bobby Western’s sister, Alicia, admitted at her request to a mental institution in 1972. Alicia invites the reader to enter her inner world, populated by people who have marked her, for good and for bad. . Alicia’s confidences are an apnea dive into a tormented universe. Alicia is also one of the few most powerful female characters in Cormac McCarthy’s work.