Well, hell, dear reader…it’s July 20, and the ghost of Cormac McCarthy’s birthday is rattling its chains, demanding a toast.  Cormac was, for my money, one of the two greatest novelists of my time (the other is Don DeLillo, who is still, thankfully, very much alive).  But today is for the late Mr. McCarthy.
Born in 1933, the old bastard would’ve been 92 today, probably still squinting into the void, penning sentences sharp enough to flay your soul.  He’s gone now – kicked the bucket on June 13, 2023, leaving us poorer for it – but his words still very much burn like cheap whiskey on a busted lip.  So here I am, half-cocked on desk whiskey and deep reverence, to sling some ink about the three McCarthy novels that have and shall always claw at my guts in the best way: No Country for Old Men, Child of God, and The Road.  If you haven’t read them, stop what you’re doing, light a cigarette (even if you don’t smoke), and prepare to have your soul dragged through the dirt.  Reading any of these three books is basically a bar fight with the abyss.  For you Gen Z creatures of comfort who can’t be bothered to crack an actual book, all three of these books were made into very respectable movies, so have at it.

First up, No Country for Old Men.  This is McCarthy at his most nihilistic, which is saying something.  It’s a story about a big bag of money, a psychopathic hitman, and the kind of moral decay that makes you want to shower in bleach.  This thing is philosophical meat grinder, a West Texas bloodbath where fate’s got a coin toss and a cattle gun.  Llewelyn Moss stumbles on a drug deal gone sour, snags a satchel of cash, and sets off a chase that’s less cat-and-mouse and more buzzard-and-corpse.  Anton Chigurh (that name alone is a blade in the dark) stalks the pages like death’s own CPA, balancing the books with a silencer. Javier Bardem’s portrayal of Anton in the movie version of the story has been called, correctly, the most accurate and realistic portrayal of a psychopath on the big screen.  The movie is one of my favorites, but the book is where it’s really at.  McCarthy’s prose is leaner than a starved coyote, every sentence a bullet.  The dialogue crackles, sparse but heavy, like men muttering over a campfire before the world ends.  It’s about chance and fate, sure, but also about how the old codes – honor, grit, whatever – get chewed up by a new kind of evil that doesn’t negotiate.  Reading it makes one want to punch a wall, then cry into one’s drink.  It’s that kind of book.

Then there’s Child of God, which is basically McCarthy saying, “Oh, you thought No Country was dark?  Hold my beer.”  Lester Ballard is a character so twisted, so utterly devoid of redemption, that you almost feel bad for him – until you remember he’s a necrophiliac living in a cave.  Yes, our boy Lester is a depraved little gremlin, a Tennessee hillbilly gone feral, humping corpses and scuttling through caves like some reject from God’s assembly line.  You shouldn’t like him, but McCarthy makes you stare, makes you see the humanity in a monster – because, hell, most of us are just one bad day from digging graves for company.  The prose here is raw, almost biblical, painting a world so bleak you can smell the rot.  It’s short, too, like a shot of rotgut that burns going down and leaves you queasy.  I love it for its nerve, for how it dares you to look away and knows you won’t.  McCarthy doesn’t flinch, and neither should you.

And finally, The Road.  Sweet, merciless Road.  This is the book that makes you want to hug your kids, stockpile canned goods, and never, ever take a sunny day for granted.  This one’s a sledgehammer to the heart.  A father and son trudging through a world scorched to ash, where hope’s a memory and cannibals are the neighbors.  It’s apocalypse stripped to the bone – no zombies, no sci-fi bullshit, just survival and love in a place that doesn’t give a shit.  The father’s cough, the boy’s questions, the way they carry “the fire” – it’s all so fragile you want to scream.  McCarthy’s style here is stark, almost poetic.  I read it when I’m feeling too cocky, when I start to mistakenly think the world’s got my back.  It humbles you, makes you want to hug your kids or your dog or hell, even a stranger, just to feel something warm.  It’s a love letter to what’s left after everything’s gone.

McCarthy’s dead now, and the world feels thinner without him.  He wrote like he was carving epitaphs, each one daring you to face the dark and keep walking.  So today, I’m pouring some out for Cormac, that grim old poet of blood and dust.  Happy birthday, you magnificent bastard.  May your shade find a barstool in whatever dive serves the afterlife’s best whiskey.  Here’s to No Country, Child of God, and The Road – three shots of truth that hit far harder than a hangover.  Cheers, and rest in chaos.

N.P.: “Up Jumped the Devil” – David & the Devil