Reading McCarthy

Cormac still types his novels on an Olivetti typewriter and your host can't figure out Facebook.  So for Episode 39 we bring in some expert help in the form of a lively discussion with Redditor supreme Joe Parslow.  He has moderated the Cormac McCarthy subreddit for over a decade and has seen it grow from its first post in April 2012 to its current position as the largest online community dev...

 Today's guest is George Berridge. George began academic life as a journalist but like Hank Williams saw the light and also began digging deeply into American Literature.  He's now the American Literature editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He lives and works in London. His exceptional review of THE PASSENGER and STELLA MARIS was published in October of last year.  He joins me in a...

Frequent guests Steven Frye and Stacey Peebles join me for another roundup of All the Pretty Horses, the National Book Award winning novel which finally forced the literary world to sit up and take notice of McCarthy.  We climb on and hold tight for this ride through this incredible novel.   Stacey Peebles is Chair of the English program, Director of Film Studies, and the Marlene and David Grissom...

Like Cormac McCarthy, Wes Morgan was born in the North—Albany, New York rather than Rhode Island—but came south at the age of 4.  Wes grew up in Atlanta and earned BS degrees in Physics and Applied Psychology at Georgia Tech.  In 1962 Wes moved to Knoxville and began working on his doctorate in psychology.  He went on to work as a staff psychologist at Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital in...

Episode 35 takes a first ride across the border with the novel that would elevate McCarthy's profile and career.  All the Pretty Horses won McCarthy the National Book Award following its publication in 1992 and was McCarthy's first best-selling novel. Our guest for this episode is Dr. Allen Josephs. A Hemingway scholar as well as a Cormackian, Allen Josephs is a past president of the Ern...

Some six weeks or so after the publication of McCarthy's first novel in 16 years, The Passenger, we have its slim companion volume, the little sister, if you will, Stella Maris.  In this brief review, I again forego the normal conversation format to offer a quick first-take review of the newest McCarthy novel, one that many presume will be the last book of his published in his lifetime.  The...

This episode is a thorough discussion of McCarthy's use of the animal kingdom in his works.  My guest in this episode is Wallis Sanborn,  Chair of the Department of English, Mass Communication, and Drama, and Graduate Program Head of the Master of Arts-Master of Fine Arts in Literature, Creative Writing, and Social Justice Program at Our Lady of the Lake University in San Antonio, Texas.  Dr....

After a sixteen year wait, we finally have a new novel by Cormac McCarthy grasped in our greedy little podcasting clutches.  In this episode of the podcast, we break with form a bit.  There's no guest discussion this episode; instead we offer a quick review of THE PASSENGER.  Is it completely correct to call it McCarthy's "new novel" since we know he's been working on it s...

This episode delves again into McCarthy's roots as we consider his intersections with Irish literature.  The guest in this episode is Tennessean by birth and now fully Texified, Richard R. Russell is Professor of English and director of graduate programs at Baylor University. He earned an M Phil at the University of Glasgow and his MA and PhD from the U of North Carolina.  Books include S eam...

The second part of our wonderful panel discussion of Cormac McCarthy’s masterful and shattering novel Blood Meridian .  Our returning guests include:  Steve Frye, who is professor and chair of English at California State University, Bakersfield and President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy (Univ. of South Carolina Press) and editor of The Cambridge...

Three returning guests join us for this first part of our interesting and engaging discussion of Cormac McCarthy’s magnum opus Blood Meridian.  Steve Frye is professor and chair of English at California State University, Bakersfield and President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy (Univ. of South Carolina Press) and editor of The Cambridge Companion t...

Episode 28 brings back previous guest Nell Sullivan to discuss a thorny subject: McCarthy’s women characters, with digressions into the ways the author tiptoes through the landscape of homosocial desire.  Nell Sullivan earned a BA in English from Vanderbilt University and earned her PhD in English from Rice University.  She is currently Professor of English at University of Houston-Downtown, where...

Episode 27 of READING MCCARTHY is a thorough consideration of Race in the Works of Cormac McCarthy.  The guest for this thoughtful and engaging discussion is Lydia Cooper; Dr. Cooper is a professor of American literature at Creighton University. Her specializations include Native American literature, Western and Southwestern literature, gender studies, and Cormac McCarthy. Her most recent book is...

Everything is topsy-turvy for this episode as returning guest Peter Josyph seizes control of the station and turns the tables on your regular host Scott Yarbrough, interviewing him.  Regular host Scott Yarbrough is the co-author of A Practical Introduction to Literary Study, co-editor with Rick Wallach of the two volume Carrying the Fire casebook collections of essays on The Road, and author of nu...

Our returning guest for READING MCCARTHY is Stacey Peebles.  On this 25th episode of the podcast we venture out into the Darkening World to Come and Ride into the Evening Redness in the West.  Yes, that’s right—this is our first full-length consideration of McCarthy’s masterpiece, Blood Meridian.  Dr. Peebles is Chair of the English program, Director of Film Studies, and the Marlene and David Gris...

The guest for Episode 24 of READING MCCARTHY needs no introduction to any member of the Cormac McCarthy Society, visitors to the CormacMccarthy.com forums, or readers of McCarthy Criticism.  One of the founders of the Cormac McCarthy society, Rick Wallach survived a degree in theology and years teaching English in Miami, Florida, and is a founding member of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is senio...

Episode 23 of READING MCCARTHY brings us a great discussion with actor and audiobook narrator Richard Poe.  Poe is known to McCarthy fans as the audiobook narrator of McCarthy’s masterwork Blood Meridian.  Richard Poe has been a professional actor since 1970, when he left the army and was soon drafted into the chorus of William Ball’s production of Oedipus Rex at the American Conservatory Theater...

This is the second part of the round table discussion of one of McCarthy’s masterworks, the 1979 novel Suttree.   The guests for this wonderful discussion include Dianne Luce, who previously appeared in episodes about The Orchard Keeper and Suttree .  Dr. Luce is a founding member and past president of the Cormac McCarthy Society.  Together with Edwin Arnold, she has edited two collections of arti...

We kick off Season 2 of READING McCARTHY with a very special episode.  Instead of having only one guest today, we’ll have three in the first part of a  round table discussion of one of McCarthy’s masterworks, SUTTREE .    As part of the round table we welcome back our guest Dianne Luce, who previously appeared in episodes about The Orchard Keeper and Suttree .  Dr. Luce is a founding member and pa...

Episode 20 brings back guest Bryan Giemza in a discussion which begins as a consideration of McCarthy and Irish Catholicism in the American South and ends with a quick dip into one of McCarthy’s less revered works, The Counselor.  Dr. Bryan Giemza is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University.  In addition to his teaching and research he serv...

This episode is Part TWO of my excellent wandering conversation with the energetic and versatile Peter Josyph.  Author, Actor, Artist, Auteur, and more, Peter Josyph’s books include The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses; Adventures in Reading Cormac McCarthy; Cormac McCarthy’s House: Reading McCarthy Without Walls; Liberty Street: Encounters at Ground Zero; The Way of...

The guest for Episode 18 is so interesting and diverse that he has sprawled into two episodes!   Author, Actor, Artist, Auteur, and more, Peter Josyph’s books include The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses; Adventures in Reading Cormac McCarthy; Cormac McCarthy’s House: Reading McCarthy Without Walls; Liberty Street: Encounters at Ground Zero; The Way of the Trumpet; Wh...

Episode 17 is an epic consideration of McCarthy’s first great epic novel, Suttree. Our returning guest is Dr. Dianne Luce.  Dianne Luce is a founding member and past president of the Cormac McCarthy Society.  She has co-edited two collections of articles on McCarthy, and she is the author of Reading the World: Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period (2009).  Recently she has been writing a two-volume s...

Our guest for Episode 16 is Michael Crews, author of Books are Made out of Books : A guide to Cormac McCarthy’s Literary Influences, published by the University of Texas Press in 2017.  Dr. Crews is an Associate Professor of English and chair of English and Communication Studies at Regents University.  He explains his work delving into the McCarthy archives of the Wittliff Collection in his quest...

Episode 15 is a dive into McCarthy’s first produced and published screenplay, The Gardener’s Son. The guest on this episode is Dr. Stacey Peebles, Chair of the English program, Director of Film Studies, and the Marlene and David Grissom Professor of Humanities at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky.  She is the author of Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier's Experience in Ira...