This Book is recommended for grades 6-12, though it is intended for grades 11-12.
Trigger Warning: Mention of Violence

Cormac McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest American Writers of all time. The Western Genre cannot be talked about without him. But who was he? Where did he come from? Lets find out!
Cormac was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20th, 1933. His family soon relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee. Though his family was affluent, he grew up around stark poverty.
Living in Knoxville, Cormac would go on to study at the University of Tennessee. When he was studying Liberal Arts, he became interested in writing after a professor asked him to replicate an 18th-century essay.
In 1953, Cormac dropped out of college to join the Air Force. While stationed in Alaska, Cormac began to read vigorously for the first time in his life. In 1957, he would return to college. Cormac published two short stories ("Wake for Susan" and "A Drowning Incident") that would help him create a name for himself as a young writer.
After his first marriage, Cormac "moved to a shack with no heat and running water in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains outside of Knoxville." His first marriage did not work, and he later moved to Chicago. There, while working part-time at an audio warehouse, he published his first novel The Orchard Keeper in 1965, which received instant praise.
In 1969, Cormac moved to Louisville, Kentucky, and purchased a Dairy farm, renovating it himself. He and his second wife lived in total poverty, with Cormac spending all of his time writing. According to his second ex-wife, "Someone would call up and offer him $2,000 to come speak at a university about his books. And he would tell them that everything he had to say was there on the page. So we would eat beans for another week." Here, he wrote his third book, Child of God set in poverty-ridden Appalachia.
In 1974, Richard Pearce of PBS asked Cormac to do a screenplay for the TV show "Visions." in 1976, using only a few photographs of Southern industrialization, he and Pearce's episode titled "The Gardener's Son" aired, which explored the impact of industrialization after the Civil War. It was nominated for two Primetime Emmy awards in 1977.
Cormac received a MacArthur Fellowship worth $236,000 in 1981, allowing him to explore the American Southwest for his book Blood Meridian. Considered one of the bloodiest books in history, famed critic Harold Bloom has called McCarthy's Magnum Opus " "the greatest single book since Faulkner's As I Lay Dying." Others have called it The Great American Novel, an acclaim few have received.
Cormac wrote Blood Meridian in a stone cottage in El Paso, Texas; a home that he described as "barely inhabitable." The book tells the story of The Kid, who journeys throughout the American Southwest, eventually falling in with a gang of scalp-hunters. The novel is a tough read, but is a critical piece of American literature.
Throughout the 1990s, Cormac McCarthy would go on to write many other tails of the American West, including Cities of the Plain, All the Pretty Horses, and The Crossing. McCarthy's novels differ from earlier famous westerns because they focus on the "true west," rather than the typical stories of cowboys, sheriffs, and shootouts. Thus, his stories are a must read to understand the history of the American West.
Likely McCarthy's most popular work among the younger generation, No Country For Old Men was released in 2005. Though he originally intended it to be a screenplay, he wrote a full novel. However, the movie won the Academy Award for Best Picture in 2008. The story explores a changing West; one that has gone from law and order to unpredictable and chaotic.
Though he devoted his life to writing, Cormac also loved science. He became a trustee for the Santa Fe Institute. The institute is devoted to "complex adaptive systems." As a writer, Cormac provided the institute with valuable insight into the complex mind of a writer. Later in life, he explored the unconscious mind and how it has impacted his writing. As humans are certainly a complex adaptive system, his work is being carried on even after his death.
One of the many reasons Cormac has received such acclaim was due to his writing style. He blends many styles from many influences: William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, and The King James Bible to name a few. He rarely used punctuation, including quotation marks, commas, or periods.
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This Book is recommended for grades 6-12, though it is intended for grades 11-12.
Trigger Warning: Mention of Violence

Cormac McCarthy is widely regarded as one of the greatest American Writers of all time. The Western Genre cannot be talked about without him. But who was he? Where did he come from? Lets find out!
Cormac was born in Providence, Rhode Island on July 20th, 1933. His family soon relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee. Though his family was affluent, he grew up around stark poverty.
Living in Knoxville, Cormac would go on to study at the University of Tennessee. When he was studying Liberal Arts, he became interested in writing after a professor asked him to replicate an 18th-century essay.
In 1953, Cormac dropped out of college to join the Air Force. While stationed in Alaska, Cormac began to read vigorously for the first time in his life. In 1957, he would return to college. Cormac published two short stories ("Wake for Susan" and "A Drowning Incident") that would help him create a name for himself as a young writer.
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