Cormac McCarthy.

[Catalogue of ills]

The boy looked at the horse and the horse looked back at him and they both felt something inside, like a candle flickering out at the end of a long night, both tired out like never before but not knocked out, aware that it wasnt over for sure, they would need to be lit again and do it again, ready to ride another day on the dirt that had brought them up and kept them where they were.

There you go - proof I am Cormac McCarthy. AMA

"He leaned and spat"

[Pink Gregory]

"He leaned and shat"

Hi, I'm the first five pages of Child of God

[Hank Venture]

Losing interest in Blood Meridian now. The plot isn't really interesting at all when you look beyond the fantastic prose. They went there, someone did this, someone said that, rinse and repeat. It worked for the first 2/3s, but now I am nearing the end it's starting to get a bit same-y.

There's one scene that makes my stomach turn in it, though. Fucking hell, I get physically sick if I think about it.

[Magnum Valentino]

"He leaned and spat"

Onto No Country For Old Men now and this is comically overused, I expect for effect.

[shagatha crustie]

Losing interest in Blood Meridian now. The plot isn't really interesting at all when you look beyond the fantastic prose. They went there, someone did this, someone said that, rinse and repeat. It worked for the first 2/3s, but now I am nearing the end it's starting to get a bit same-y.

There's one scene that makes my stomach turn in it, though. Fucking hell, I get physically sick if I think about it.

Stick wi'it

[Mobius]

I love Cormac but this always makes me chuckle

[Mobius]

Sorry to bump this again, but I just noticed that the Blood Meridian audiobook was available on Youtube.

Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1hkS0DGhbQ
Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ILrHu4tjMtI
(broken up due to the size/length I assume but it's all 1 big book)

I really can't recommend this audiobook highly enough. The narrator does a fantastic job. Well worth a listen even if you've read the book.

[hayduke_lives]

Two new books coming, one in October and one in November!

[Magnum Valentino]

Fuck sake I thought I was working my way through a finite, er, bibliography. I'm not going to get six books read by then!

[JohnnyCouncil]

I've been putting of Suttree for years, nice lead time to get it donw though. May go back to read some of his earlier works such as Outer Dark.

Been a while since I watched it but do remember enjoying the Child of God film. Anyone else seen it?

[Magnum Valentino]

Yeah, I actually did see it and it wasn't until I'd finished the book and was reading about it online afterwards that I remembered the AWFUL film version! It's shite!

[Harvey Milk]

It still astounds me that, of the few famous people McCarthy has chosen to hang out with, Norm Macdonald (one of my comedy heroes) was the one who got to meet him and came to call him a "dear, dear friend".

Then again, McCarthy has never been one to hang out with other writers - despite Norm being the one, of course, though not of the established kind - and seems to prefer the company of scientists at the Santa Fe Institute.

[kalowski]

I am excited about these books, but really need them published in paperback by Picador so they fit in with all my other books by him.

[Magnum Valentino]

I am excited about these books, but really need them published in paperback by Picador so they fit in with all my other books by him.

Same. I even passed over getting a few of them cheap in HMV because they were those budget versions with a cheaper glossy card stock for the covers, even though the design is identical. (See also HMVs copies of any Irvine Welsh books).

[Mobius]

Sounds like his new books are going to be a big departure from his usual stuff, which as someone who hates change I'm not too sure about but I'm sure it'll be great!

I see articles keep saying one of these new books is his first time writing a woman but what about Rinthy in Outer Dark?!

[Magnum Valentino]

I am excited about these books, but really need them published in paperback by Picador so they fit in with all my other books by him.

It's just occured to me - do the two screenplays, which are also published by Picador, have the same trade dress as the main ten novels?

[kalowski]

It's just occured to me - do the two screenplays, which are also published by Picador, have the same trade dress as the main ten novels?

Yes, although annoyingly my copy of The Counselor is hardback so sticks out too much.
(Also very disappointing compared to the novels)

[Magnum Valentino]

Collectors of Marvel's Omnibus reprint series (specifically of material from the 60s and 70s) have recently been subjected to the first major spine-design revision since the line properly launched in 2006 and the community is very unhappy about it.

It would never stop me buying a book but there's that wee niggle isn't there, the bristling every time you glance at the shelf with four BIG FAT AMAZING SPIDER-MANS and one (admittedly much classier) smaller one.

Much the same with that one hardback of yours I imagine.

[H-O-W-L]

I've never read any McCarthy but someone referred him to me as "the novel version of a Godspeed You track" which I don't know is true or not and probably a shit comparison but I love me some GY!BE. Should definitely get on the amphetamines books ASAP.

[Mobius]

Advanced copies of Cormac's 2 new ones are out there now, which is nice.

Sadly the covers are pretty dogshit

[Twit 2]

Those covers are fucking shocking. Jesus. One on left looks like a Jehovah's Witness leaflet.

[sevendaughters]

one assumes from the cover (which I doubt the published version looks like) that they're related as books? I haven't read anything about them.

[PlanktonSideburns]

Looks like the cover of an Earl Gray tea bag in an air bnb in Aberdeen

[Mobius]

one assumes from the cover (which I doubt the published version looks like) that they're related as books? I haven't read anything about them.

Yep! Bit of background on each book below. Not really spoilers, but if you want to go in completely blind and not know the plot or anything don't click.

Spoiler alert

The Passenger is a fast-paced and sprawling novel while Stella Maris is a tightly controlled coda, told entirely in dialogue. Together they relate the thrilling story of a brother and sister, haunted by loss, pursued by conspiracy, and longing for a death they cannot reconcile with God.


The Passenger

1980, PASS CHRISTIAN, MISSISSIPPI: It is three in the morning when Bobby Western, a salvage diver, zips the jacket of his wet suit and plunges from the boat deck into darkness. His dive light illuminates the sunken jet, nine bodies still buckled in their seats, hair floating, eyes devoid of speculation. Missing from the crash site are the pilot's flight bag, the plane's black box, and the tenth passenger. But how? A collateral witness to machinations that can only bring him harm, Western is shadowed in body and spirit—by men with badges; by the ghost of his father, inventor of the bomb that melted glass and flesh in Hiroshima; and by his sister, the love and ruin of his soul.

Stella Maris

1972, BLACK RIVER FALLS, WISCONSIN: Alicia Western is twenty years old when she arrives at a psychiatric facility with forty thousand dollars in a plastic bag. A doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, Alicia has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, and she does not want to talk about her brother, Bobby. Instead, she contemplates the nature of madness, the human insistence on one common experience of the world; she surveys the intersection of physics and philosophy; and she introduces her cohorts, her chimeras, the hallucinations that only she can see. All the while, she grieves for Bobby, not quite dead, not quite hers.

[close]

Look for The Passenger, the first volume in The Passenger series, on sale October 25th, 2022; and Stella Maris, the second volume, on sale December 6th, 2022

[QDRPHNC]

Advanced copies of Cormac's 2 new ones are out there now, which is nice.

Sadly the covers are pretty dogshit

Jesus those covers are brutal. Look like something released by those companies on Amazon who reprint public domain stuff with stock photo covers.

[Mobius]

These are much nicer, but presumably not that actual covers. Dunno what a 'proof' is

[Clatty McCutcheon]

Dunno what a 'proof' is

An almost-final version of the manuscript that's been put in the format for publication but not had a final proofread - a check for typos, spelling errors, formatting issues, etc.

[Red Lantern]

It must be challenging to proof-read a McCarthy novel, given his rather unusual syntax.

[PlanktonSideburns]

It must be challenging to proof-read a McCarthy novel, given his rather unusual syntax.

Dear Mr mcarthy,

Where to start!? You left all the bloody commas out you fool? At least that meant I finished it quicker

Tell you what, have the weekend off, spend next week finishing it off properly then send us the proper version late next week

Cheers
Plank

[holyzombiejesus]

"Some of it was in foreign!"