Cormac McCarthy’s Respite From Loneliness

Bobby Western, the protagonist of McCarthy’s new novel, The Passenger, at first appears to be a departure from type. A race car driver turned salvage diver, Bobby is socially embedded and seemingly beloved. He plumbs the depths of the Gulf of Mexico with his buddy Oiler. He shoots the shit with a loquacious drug dealer named Long John Sheddan, who refers to him affectionately as “Squire.” He frequents a bar in the French Quarter of New Orleans where everyone knows his name. For him, unlike for other McCarthy men, solitude proves elusive—he even makes a friend while living on an island off the Iberian Peninsula.