Cormac McCarthy’s "The Passenger" and "Stella Maris"

Cormac McCarthy’s most memorable characters to date are the ones who operate beyond traditional good-versus-evil morality. The Judge in Blood Meridian comes to mind, of course, and you can bet your lucky quarter that Anton Chigurh from No Country for Old Men does as well. We can now count Alicia Western among their illustrious company, even if—especially if—her violence is directed inward instead. “If the world itself is a horror,” she says, “then there is nothing to fix and the only thing you could be protected from would be the contemplation of it.”