Meeting Cormac

I've mentioned before that I'm the Webmaster over at The Cormac McCarthy Home Pages. Few people know how that came about; here's the story.

I was fortunate to have been allowed, while in college (1989-93), to interview Shelby Foote, who came to school and spoke one morning. During the course of our chat (I was nervous, and tapes of the event betray such by my constant mmmm-hmmms and other verbal tics), I asked him who his favorite contemporary novelist was. Foote remarked that Cormac McCarthy was "very good"; in Shelby Foote's argot, that's high praise indeed.

This interview was conducted in the spring of 1992, just before All the Pretty Horses was published. Foote said he'd read the galleys and the novel was (again) "very good." I waited several months and bought All the Pretty Horses the first time I saw it for sale.

I read about half of the book and then went back and bought three more copies — I'd been something of a book collector before, but encountering McCarthy induced a case of full-blown bibliomania that's not let up from that day to this.

I also became an evangelist for McCarthy, proselytizing as I was able, giving away copies of the book (most of the rest of his work was then still out of print), and generally talking about this obscure writer McCarthy at length to anyone who would listen.

All the Pretty Horses went on to become a runaway best-seller. And the reclusive McCarthy became famous. He still didn't give interviews, though, so little information existed about his life, and no critical work existed apart from Vereen Bell's The Achievement of Cormac McCarthy and John Sepich's Notes on Blood Meridian.

It turned out that the latter book had been published on the occasion of the first McCarthy conference, which was held at Bellarmine College in Kentucky in 1992. I didn't yet know it, but I'd later meet most of the small circle of scholars and enthusiasts who were at that conference.

Papers from the First Conference were assembled into another book, edited by Edwin T. Arnold and Dianne Luce. I picked up a copy of that book upon its publication.

Then in 1994, I broke up with Psycho Homewrecker, the (now ex-) girlfriend. That left me with a lot of free time on my hands. And the second volume of The Border Trilogy, The Crossing had been published earlier that year.

Also, about this time I discovered the Internet. I had an account with the old Prodigy Service, which offered "Personal Web Pages." I got a book on HTML, taught myself, and put up a page devoted to McCarthy and his work. At the time, it was practically the only site devoted to McCarthy in existence.

I collected material about McCarthy, wrote a short biography, and made lists of available criticism and reference books. Then, one day out of the blue, I got an email from Edwin T. Arnold, who I mentioned above as having co-edited the papers from the First Conference (Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy). I was, in a word, dumbstruck. I sent Dr. Arnold an email back asking if he were The Edwin T. Arnold who'd edited Perspectives, and he said he was indeed. He and some of the folks from the First Conference were contemplating forming a Society, and lo and behold, they asked for my help. Wanted me to be their Webmaster. For this, I'd get some content for my site, my Internet access paid for a while, and a seat on the Society's Board.

And the rest, as they say, is history. I attended my first McCarthy Conference in (I believe it was) 1995, and continued to participate on a more-or-less yearly basis from then on. I presented papers, had a few articles published, and generally established myself as something of a raconteur on the subject.

Again, out of the blue, I got an email asking me if I'd contribute the entry on Cormac McCarthy for the Dictionary of Literary Biography's 20th Century American Western Writers volume. I wrote that, too.

I now know and am good friends with many of the Society folks, who continue to host conferences and now publish voluminously about Cormac McCarthy. I'm continuing my maintenance of the Web site, because McCarthy's work is endlessly fascinating to me.

In October of 2002, I flew down to Houston, where several Society folks had gathered to witness the first production of McCarthy's only play, The Stonemason. McCarthy, to the shock of all of us involved with the Society, had indicated that he'd attend. Several of us met him and talked with him. He and I discussed the weather.

He's slight-of-stature with piercing blue-gray eyes that always seem to be probing something. He talks in a warm, affable manner, and his demeanor almost belies his considerable intelligence.

And that's how I met Cormac McCarthy. Other stories exist, from other people, about how McCarthy once called them up on the phone, wrote them letters, and the like. The Society as a whole, however, has taken a hands-off view toward his personal life, preferring to honor his requests and let him live his life in peace. We admire the books.