Cormac McCarthy, Legendary Author Of No Country For Old Men And The Road, Has Died At 89

Author Cormac McCarthy, the legendary Pulitzer Prize-winning author behind such novels as "Blood Meridian," "No Country for Old Men," and "The Road," has died at the age of 89 at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. His death was confirmed by his son, John McCarthy, in a statement from his publisher, Penguin Random House, and USA Today reports that the esteemed author died of natural causes. McCarthy's brutal imagery and simple prose made his work challenging to adapt for film, though an adaptation of "No Country for Old Men," directed by the Coen brothers, won the 2008 Academy Award for Best Picture. Earlier this month, Playlist revealed that McCarthy was working on a screenplay adaptation of one of his most challenging novels, "Blood Meridian."

McCarthy's novels were uncompromising, unflinching looks at the horrors of humanity, told through prose that drew from groundbreaking authors like William Faulkner and James Joyce, eschewing traditional grammatical rules and punctuation in the service of storytelling. Born in Rhode Island but raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, McCarthy would go on to write the kinds of Southern Gothics that would make V.C. Andrews hightail it back up to the attic. No one wrote gruesome quite like McCarthy, though there always seemed to be a purpose behind the otherwise nihilistic tales he told. His novels served up brutality with a purpose, and few others have ever come close to touching his talents. 

McCarthy was famously reclusive, shunning the spotlight and choosing instead to focus on his craft. Just as his writing was without unnecessary flourishes, the author himself preferred a simple, unassuming life. His first taste of acclaim came when he won the 1992 National Book Award for "All the Pretty Horses," which would go on to be a feature film in 2000 starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz. The movie didn't do all that well, but he got his due in 2007 when his novel "The Road" won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction and was then turned into a movie starring Kodi Smit-McPhee and Viggo Mortensen. He also wrote an original screenplay for the 2013 Ridley Scott film "The Counselor," though it received mixed reviews. The most successful McCarthy adaptation to date was "No Country for Old Men," which leaned into the sparse simplicity of McCarthy's prose, delivering moments of violence like a bludgeon. 

An adaptation of "Blood Meridian" has been in development for years, and in April, the movie finally moved forward with the announcement that previous collaborator John Hillcoat, who directed "The Road," would be directing with McCarthy and his son John signed on as executive producers. McCarthy was only recently announced to be writing the screenplay, so the movie may get put on hold while they figure out who can tackle screenwriting duties. No one could ever possibly be McCarthy, so whoever takes on that role has some seriously big cowboy boots to fill. 

May he rest in peace.