The Weirdness of 'Blood Meridian'

Amidst the myriad eulogies to the American novelist and screenwriter Cormac McCarthy, who has died aged 89, there is a salient, perhaps even reassuring, fact. Although he ended his life and career praised as perhaps the definitive writer of his age, he toiled away without particular success until he was nearly 60, when his sixth novel All the Pretty Horses was a bestseller and brought his terse, poetic style to a mass audience. McCarthy subsequently went on to publish another six novels, most of which met with similar acclaim, although his final two, 2022’s Stella Maris and The Passenger, received a more muted reaction.