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Reading McCarthy

Scott Yarbrough and Guest Hosts

READING MCCARTHY is a podcast devoted to the consideration and discussion of the works of one of our greatest American writers, Cormac McCarthy. Each episode will call upon different well-known Cormackian readers and scholars to help us explore different works and various essential aspects of McCarthy’s writing. (Note these episodes try to offer accessible literary criticism and may contain spoilers from different McCarthy works.)

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S5 · E66
October 19 · 1 hr 9 min
Ep. 66: The McCarthy Library Project: Books are Made Out of Books Are Made Out of Books and Still More Books
Send us Fan Mail After Cormac McCarthy’s death in June of 2023, his surviving family members were hit with a very complicated question: What in the world are we to do with all these books? In addition to the thousands upon thousands in his house, there were storage lockers in Santa Fe and El Paso. At the same time, leadership in the Cormac McCarthy society was asking, how can we further preserve and sustain the author’s legacy? And so Dr. Stacey Peebles rounded up a gang of Cormackian compatriots, and aided most of all by the Brothers Elmore (Drs. Jon and Rick, respectively) the group descended upon McCarthy’s house to catalog and go through and help classify the more than 20,000 books in the late McCarthy’s possession. Guests on this episode of Reading McCarthy include Dr. Stacey Peebles, Stodghill Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She is the author of Cormac McCarthy's Maps and Mazes: Tracing the Critical Reception, which will be out this fall, as well as The War Comes with You: Enduring War in Life, Fiction, and Fantasy, Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, Screen, and Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier's Experience in Iraq. She is the editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal and, along with Rick and Jon Elmore, an editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Cormac McCarthy. She is the director of the Cormac McCarthy Library Project and her next monograph is on the library and the story of cataloging it. Joining her are the Brothers Elmore: Dr. Jonathan Elmore is the Robert C. Snyder Endowed Professor of English at Louisiana Tech University and the Managing Editor of Watchung Review. He researches and teaches environmental humanities, American literature, Cormac McCarthy Studies, and composition. He is co-author of An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution (ALG); the editor of Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction: Narrative in an Era of Loss, (Lexington) and co-editor of The Evolving Project of Cormac McCarthy (LSU) and New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering The Passenger and Stella Maris (USC Press). He is a member of the editorial board of The Cormac McCarthy Journal and associate director of The McCarthy Library Project. Dr. Rick Elmore is a Professor of Philosophy at Appalachian State University. He is Senior Managing Editor of book reviews at Symposium and a member of the Symposium Editorial Collective. He researches and teaches in the areas of twentieth-century French philosophy, Critical Theory, animal philosophy, and Cormac McCarthy Studies. He is the coeditor of The Biopolitics of Punishment: Derrida and Foucault (Northwestern UP), The Evolving Project of Cormac McCarthy (LSU Press), and New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering The Passenger and Stella Maris (USC Press). His articles and essays have appeared in Politics & Policy, Symplokē, Symposium, Mississippi Quarterly, among others. He is a member of the editorial board of The Cormac McCarthy Journal and associate director of The McCarthy Library Project. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
October 14 · 17 min
INbetweener Episode: Reading Cormac McCarthy--Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels book released
Send us Fan Mail This isn't a full and proper READING MCCARTHY episode (and thus not numbered!) but is a brief discussion of the book adaptation of a number of podcast episodes! The Table of Contents of the book include (paraphrased to save space): McCarthy Introduction with Steve Frye The Orchard Keeper with Dianne Luce Outer Dark with Nell Sullivan Child of God with Bill Hardwig The Gardener's Son with Stacey Peebles Suttree with Dianne Luce and then McCarthy and the Southern Gothic with Bill Hardwig McCarthy and Southern Lit, with Bryan Giemza McCarthy and Melville, with Steven Frye McCarthy and Faulkner, with Jay Watson McCarthy and Faith, with Bryan Vescio and Bryan Giemza (no relation) McCarthy and Race with Lydia Cooper McCarthy's Women characters with Nell Sullivan To order the book, please visit the McFarland Press site here or order from your favorite bookseller. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S5 · E65
July 17 · 1 hr 29 min
Episode 65: The End of Something in STELLA MARIS, with Nell Sullivan and Vernon Cisney
Send us Fan Mail With this episode, READING MCCARTHY has discussed every novel published by Cormac McCarthy. Published in early December of 2022, STELLA MARIS was the last novel published by McCarthy in his lifetime. The second book in a pair of sibling novels about the Westerns, STELLA MARIS consists of a series of interviews between the troubled genius Alicia Western and a research psychiatrist. Alicia first appears in THE PASSENGER, but it is in this novel that the spotlight is firmly upon her. My guests for this episode are Nell Sullivan, who joined us previously for episodes on McCarthy and Women Characters, on Outer Dark, on a consideration of The Border Trilogy, and the tribute episode to McCarthy. She is Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she teaches courses in American literature, the literature of the American South, and zombies. She has published essays on William Faulkner, Nella Larsen, Katherine Dunn, and, of course, Cormac McCarthy. She is currently working on a book on McCarthy’s representation of women. Like myself and Vern Cisney, her most recent chapter on McCarthy has recently been published in the collection, New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy, Encountering The Passenger and Stellar Maris, edited by the Brothers Elmore. Joining Dr. Sullivan is Dr. Vernon W. Cisney, who is Chair and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He teaches at the intersections of philosophy, religion, film, literature, and politics. He is the author of Deleuze and Derrida: Difference and the Power of the Negative (2018), as well as Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (2014). In addition, he is the co-editor of Between Foucault and Derrida (2016); Biopower: Foucault and Beyond (2015); and The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace: Philosophical Footholds on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2016). Most recently, he has written articles and chapters included in Deleuze and Guattari Studies and New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering the Passenger and Stella Maris, and is currently editing with Jonathan and Rick Elmore a volume on McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. All music for READING MCCARTHY is composed, performed, and produced by Thomas Frye. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S5 · E64
May 11 · 40 min
Episode 64: McCarthy and Philosophy
Send us Fan Mail Last October while attending the American Literature Association fiction symposium in Santa Fe, New Mexico, I managed to sequester two live, dyed-in-the-wool employed philosophers who also happen to be Cormac McCarthy experts. My AV guy (which is me) thought to handle the situation in some arm chairs near an elevator using a very expensive microphone rig ($28 at least) which attached to my phone. So--the sound is challenging, but I hope that listeners will forge ahead to this excellent conversation. Returning to the podcast is Dr. Rick Elmore, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Appalachian State University and Senior Managing Editor of book reviews at Symposium. He researches and teaches in the areas of twentieth-century French philosophy, critical theory, animal philosophy, and Cormac McCarthy Studies. He is the co-editor of The Biopolitics of Punishment: Derrida and Foucault (Northwestern University Press), The Evolving Project of Cormac McCarthy (LSU) and, published after this recording, New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering The Passenger and Stella Maris (U. South Carolina Press). His articles and essays have appeared in Politics & Policy, Symplokē, Symposium, Mississippi Quarterly, and The Cormac McCarthy Journal, among others. Joining him is his good friend Dr. Vern Cisney, the chair and associate professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Gettysburg College, where he teaches at the intersections of philosophy, religion, film, literature, politics, and popular culture. He is the author of Deleuze and Derrida: Difference and the Power of the Negative (Edinburgh, 2014). He is additionally the coeditor of Between Foucault and Derrida (Edinburgh, 2016), BioPower: Foucault and Beyond (Chicago, 2015), The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace: Philosophical Footholds On Terence Malick’s Tree of Life (Northwestern, 2016) and a number of other books. Recent articles include work in Deleuze and Guattari Studies, and pieces in The Evolving Project of Cormac McCarthy, and New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering The Passenger and Stella Maris. Thanks as well to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. We appreciate favorable reviews on the platform of your choice. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
April 8 · 47 min
Episode 63: A Tribute to Rick Wallach
Send us Fan Mail Rick Wallach, one of the founding members of the Cormac McCarthy Society and, indeed, of McCarthy studies in general, passed away on January 27th at the age of 75. A former president of the Cormac McCarthy Society, Rick taught English at the University of Miami. He instituted and was the senior editor of the Cormac McCarthy Society casebook series, and was the editor of the two-volume collection of essays Sacred Violence as well as Myth, Legend Dust: Critical Responses to Cormac McCarthy, and co-editor with Lynnea Chapman King and the late James Welsh of From Novel to Film: No Country for Old Men. He wrote on films, pop culture, music by bands like the Cowboy Junkies, and his final book was In Search of Godzilla: Myth, Stagecraft and Politics in Ishiro Honda’s Masterpiece, published by McFarland Press. This episode is a tribute to Rick, with comments from friends and colleagues Stacey Peebles, Marty Priola, and Peter Josyph. Stacey Peebles is H. W. Stodghill, Jr. and Adele H. Stodghill Professor of English and Chair of Film Studies at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky. She is the author of The War Comes with You: Enduring War in Life, Fiction, and Fantasy (2024), Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, Screen (2017), and Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier’s Experience in Iraq (2011). She is the editor of the collection Violence in Literature (2014) and, with Ben West, co-editor of Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy (2021). She has been editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal since 2010. Marty Priola’s website for McCarthy appreciation became the first website and a foundational part of the formation of the Cormac McCarthy Society, and he still maintains the Cormac McCarthy webpages and forums. He has written two entries on McCarthy for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. His writing is also featured in exchanges with Peter Josyph in Cormac Mccarthy’s House: Reading Mccarthy Without Walls and The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac Mccarthy: All The Pretty Horses, which he edited and published in its first (ebook) form. Peter Josyph works concurrently as a writer, painter, actor, and an award-winning filmmaker. He was a frequent keynoter for the Cormac McCarthy Society; he played White in a production of THE SUNSET LIMITED in Danville, Kentucky; his painted tributes to McCarthy have exhibited around the world; and he has published five books on McCarthy, the most recent being CORMAC McCARTHY’S LAST OUTLAWS: THE COUNSELOR AND THE PASSENGER, and GLANTON’S HORSE. Thomas Frye composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. To contact the host, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S5 · E62
March 26 · 1 hr 22 min
Episode 62: Part Two--Can the Panel Redeem THE COUNSELOR?
Send us Fan Mail After a long break in which your intrepid host has contended with everything from eye surgery to accreditation, the second part of the panel discussion on The Counselor is finally here. Returning for the second part of his first appearance on the podcast is Dr. Russell Hillier, whose consideration of the screenplay first sparked my interest in examining the text again. He is Professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island. He is the author of two books, Milton’s Messiah (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s Fiction: Souls at Hazard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and he is coeditor of Combined Lights: Comparative Essays on the Writings of John Donne and George Herbert (University of Delaware Press, 2021). Additionally, he has published articles on many authors in many journals. Returning as well is the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce. She is the author of Reading The World. Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period, University of South Carolina Press, 2009, and Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, 1959-1974, U South Carolina Press 2023. She is currently working on a second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, covering 1974-1985. Bryan A. Giemza is Professor of Humanities and Literature at the Texas Tech University Honors College. His work bridges literature, climate communication, and public-facing humanities. He has published widely on McCarthy’s engagement with science, theology, and the American West. His forthcoming edited volume, Sowing the West Texas Wind, examines the causes and consequences of misinformation through regional case studies. His work has been supported by major humanities funders including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program. His book Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds was published by Bloomsbury in 2023. As always, listeners are warned: there be spoilers here. Film trailer excerpts from The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott, distributed by 20th Century Fox, 2013. Thanks as always to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. Download and follow this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact the host, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S5 · E61
Dec 16, 2025 · 1 hr 7 min
Episode 61: Part One of Seeking Guidance for THE COUNSELOR
Send us Fan Mail Full disclosure time here on the READING MCCARTHY podcast. When Ridley Scott’s film The Counselor arrived in theaters with its very own shiny McCarthy screenplay, I was underwhelmed. We’d been waiting for over half a decade for The Passenger and had no idea we’d be almost another ten years waiting for that project (and of course we had no concept of Stella Maris at the time). I found interesting elements in the film but didn’t think it held together. But people smarter than me (such as my three guests in this program) convinced me to return to it it and here we are in a 2-parter. Appearing for the first time is Dr. Russell Hillier, whose consideration of the screenplay sparked my interest in returning for another bout: he is Professor of English at Providence College, Rhode Island. He is the author of two books, Milton’s Messiah (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Morality in Cormac McCarthy’s Fiction: Souls at Hazard (Palgrave Macmillan, 2017), and he is coeditor of Combined Lights: Comparative Essays on the Writings of John Donne and George Herbert (University of Delaware Press, 2021). Additionally, he has published articles on many authors in many journals. Returning as well is the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce. She is the author of Reading The World. Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period, University of South Carolina Press, 2009, and Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, 1959-1974, U South Carolina Press 2023. She is currently working on a second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, covering 1974-1985. Bryan A. Giemza is Professor of Humanities and Literature at the Texas Tech University Honors College. His work bridges literature, climate communication, and public-facing humanities. He has published widely on McCarthy’s engagement with science, theology, and the American West. His forthcoming edited volume, Sowing the West Texas Wind, examines the causes and consequences of misinformation through regional case studies. His work has been supported by major humanities funders including the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Fulbright Program. His book Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds was published by Bloomsbury in 2023. As always, listeners are warned: there be spoilers here. Film trailer excerpts from The Counselor, directed by Ridley Scott, distributed by 20th Century Fox, 2013. Thanks as always to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. Download and follow this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact the host, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S5 · E60
Oct 13, 2025 · 1 hr 56 min
Episode 60: Riding Shotgun on THE PASSENGER with Lydia Cooper and Brent Cline
Send us Fan Mail For the podcast's 60th episode we are finally able to develop a lengthy and thorough discussion of The Passenger, McCarthy's penultimate novel from 2022. I'm joined by two returning guests of the podcast: Dr. Lydia Cooper is a professor of American literature and director of the core curriculum at Seattle University. Her specializations include Native American literature, Western and southwestern literature, and gender studies, and of course Cormac McCarthy. Her most recent book is Cormac McCarthy: A Complexity Theory of Literature, published by Manchester University Press. Other books includes Masculinities in Literature of the American West, and No More Heroes: Narrative Perspective and Morality in the Novels, those novels being the books of Cormac McCarthy. Her work on McCarthy and on other modern and contemporary American and Native American writers has appeared in numerous academic journals such as Studies in the Novel, Studies in American Indian Literature, and Interdisciplinary Studies in Literature and the Environment . She is the Vice President of the McCarthy Society. Also returning is Dr. Brent Cline. He is an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. He earned his PhD at Western Michigan University, where his dissertation focused on representations of mental disability and the modern novel. He has published articles and chapters involving disability on Walker Percy, James Agee, and Daniel Keyes. His review of The Passenger/Stella Maris was published with The University Bookman. His article on The Mexican Revolution and All the Pretty Horses was published recently in the CMJ. Corrections: I refer a few times to the siblings' grandmother and McCarthy's stretch regarding her ethnicity. It should be their great grandmother. Additionally, in the closing pages of the novels Bobby is not on Ibiza as we state but the nearby small island of Formentera, part of the same archipelago. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E59
Sep 23, 2025 · 1 hr 28 min
Episode 59: The Big Screen Beckons--McCarthy's Screenplays with Stacey Peebles
Send us Fan Mail Episode 60 of READING McCARTHY sees the return of one of my favorite guests, Dr. Stacey Peebles. In addition to her many other roles described below, she is the preeminent expert on McCarthy’s work in screenplays. Please join us for a consideration of his various screenplays, both produced (The Counselor) and unproduced (Cities of the Plain, No Country for Old Men, Men and Whales) as well as a brief discussion of the film adaptations of his work thus far. Stacey Peebles is the HW Stodghill and Adele H Stodghill Professor of English and Director of Film Studies at Centre College. She's the author of The War Comes With You: Enduring War in Life, Fiction, and Fantasy (Dec. 2024), Welcome to the Suck: Narrating the American Soldier's Experience in Iraq, and Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, Screen. She has been editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal since 2010 and is the current President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. Download and follow this podcast on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact the host, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E58
Jun 5, 2025 · 1 hr 17 min
Episode 58: Staying off the Tracks of THE SUNSET LIMITED with Dianne Luce
Send us Fan Mail The 58th episode brings back the excellent Dr. Dianne Luce to discuss with us McCarthy’s 2006 play The Sunset Limited (or is it a novel in dramatic form?). Produced first by the Steppenwolf Theater in Chicago in May of 2006, it later went on to open in New York. Dianne Luce saw it in Chicago during that opening run and we’ve both seen the Tommy Lee Jones directed film version which aired on HBO in 2011. The play shows two men, a cynical, atheist white professor and an evangelical Black ex-con, who debate faith, whether life has meaning or consequence, and whether suicide is a viable option. Returning guest Dianne Luce has appeared previously on Reading McCarthy with discussions of The Orchard Keeper, Suttree, and McCarthy’s legacy, among others. She is a founding member and past president of the Cormac McCarthy society. Together with Edwin Arnold she edited two seminal collections of essays on McCarthy’s work, Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy and A Cormac McCarthy Companion: The Border Trilogy. Additionally she is the author of Reading The World. Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period, University of South Carolina Press, 2009, and Embracing Vocation: Embracing Vocation: Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, 1959-1974, USC Press 2023. She is currently working on a second volume of Cormac McCarthy's Writing Life, covering 1974-1985. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. Film trailer for The Sunset Limited, directed by Tommy Lee Jones, 2011. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll follow along. Download and follow us on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact us, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E57
Feb 12, 2025 · 43 min
Episode 57: The Wittliff with Lead Archivist Katie Salzmann
Send us Fan Mail This past December your not-so-intrepid host was able to make a pilgrimage to San Marcos, Texas, to visit the Wittliff Collection in the Alkek Library at Texas State University and plumb its treasure trove of McCarthy archives. My guest in this episode is Katie Salzmann, who has been Lead Archivist at The Wittliff Collections at Texas State since 2004. Prior to that, she worked with literary and historical manuscript collections at Southern Illinois University and Howard University. She holds a BA in English from The College of Wooster in Ohio, and a Masters in Library and Information Science from the University of Texas-Austin. Katie oversees all areas of The Wittliff's archival program, and her talented team process collections, provide reference and instruction, and digitize select materials. Katie processed the original Cormac McCarthy collection acquired in 2007 and is currently working on the latest accrual anticipated to open in Fall of 2025 . Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on your favored platforms. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E56
Jan 1, 2025 · 56 min
Episode 56: The Brothers Elmore Flip a Coin with No Country for Old Men
Send us Fan Mail This episode has a history that winds like a West Texas border road. My guests are the Brothers Elmore, and we originally recorded it in April but one of the tracks went bad. So finally at the end of our collective academic semesters, we once again discussed No Country for Old Men, speculating about its origins, its commentary on neo-liberalism, the film adaptation, and how some critics tried to read the author through the novel. Twin brothers, the Elmores collaborate on their work on McCarthy. Jonathan Elmore is Associate Professor of English at Louisiana Tech University and the Managing Editor of Watchung Review.. He is the editor of Fiction and the Sixth Mass Extinction: Narrative in an Era of Loss (Lexington) and co-author of An Introduction to African and Afro-Diasporic Peoples and Influences in British Literature and Culture before the Industrial Revolution (ALG). His scholarship has been published in The Cormac McCarthy Journal, Mississippi Quarterly, The British Fantasy Society Journal, Orbit, The Journal of Liberal Arts and Humanities, and The Criterion, among others. Thanks as well to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope that like Hank Williams they will someday see the light. Download and follow us on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. The website is readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E55
Nov 18, 2024 · 42 min
Episode 55: Writer Ron Rash on McCarthy's Work and Influence
Send us Fan Mail Episode 55 is a discussion with award winning novelist, short story writer, poet, and big-time McCarthy fan, Ron Rash. Ron attended Gardner Webb University in Boiling Rock NC and then earned his master’s in English at Clemson University. He is a writing and English faculty member at Western Carolina in Cullowhee, NC, where he serves as the John and Dorothy Parris Distinguished Professor of Appalachian Cultural Studies. Ron has won many (I mean, many) honors and awards, including the Academy of American Poets Prize in 1986, O’Henry short story awards in 2005, 2010, 2019, and the Frank O’Connor International short story award in 2010. His collection of stories Chemistry and Other Stories was a finalist for the Pen/Faulkner award, as was his novel Serena. His most recent novel is The Caretaker, a novel set during the Korean War but dealing primarily with class stratification and the home-front in Blowing Rock, North Carolina. The Caretaker was selected by the New York Times as one of the Best Books of the Year for 2023. Ron was the Keynote speaker at the McCarthy Conference in October, 2024 and was kind enough to sit for an interview and discuss our mutual passion for the works of Cormac McCarthy. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll follow along. Download and follow us on Apple, Spotify, Google Play, Stitcher, or wherever you get your podcasts. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on these platforms. To contact us, please reach out to readingmccarthy@gmail.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E54
Oct 21, 2024 · 1 hr 2 min
Episode 54: Following McCarthy's Tracks with Austin Smith
Send us Fan Mail This episode of READING MCCARTHY welcomes to the podcast for the first time Austin Smith. Austin studied history and literature at the University of Georgia. He has worked as a photographer and a professional adventure photographer, following the art into aviation, mountaineering, and motorcycle racing. He now leads a human resources consulting business in Denver, Colorado. A couple of years ago he hooked up an Airstream fifth wheel RV to his truck and, armed with a load of McCarthy novels, followed the books’ trails across the southwest. At one point things maybe even get a little Indiana Jones for Austin (or possibly Bobby Western). Austin’s blog on the subject may be found here: http://www.austincameronsmith.com/photo-essay-cormac-mccarthys-borderlands Thomas Frye composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platforms. If you enjoy this podcast, you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is still nominally on X aka Twitter that was. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S4 · E53
Aug 2, 2024 · 1 hr 12 min
Episode 53: Rambling Down THE ROAD with Bryan Vescio
Send us Fan Mail This 53rd episode of READING MCCARTHY takes a long ramble down THE ROAD, McCarthy’s 2006 Pulitzer Prize winning novel of a father and son enduring life in a harrowing, ashen landscape after some undisclosed apocalypse. For this discussion I’m glad to welcome back guest Dr. Bryan Vescio. Professor and Chair of English at High Point University in North Carolina, Dr. Vescio has previously joined us for discussions on Suttree and Cities of the Plain, among others. He is the author of the 2014 book Reconstruction in Literary Studies: An Informalist Approach, as well as numerous articles on American authors including Mark Twain, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Nathanael West, and articles on works by Cormac Mccarthy including Suttree, Blood Meridian, and The Road. Thomas Frye composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. If you’re agreeable it’ll help us if you provide favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platforms. If you enjoy this podcast, you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is still nominally on X aka Twitter that was. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S3 · E52
Jun 24, 2024 · 1 hr 38 min
Episode 52: McCarthy and Hemingway
Send us Fan Mail Episode 52 is a round table considering the impact of Ernest Hemingway’s writing on the works of Cormac McCarthy. Joining us for this discussion are Dr. Olivia Carr Edenfield, Professor of English at Georgia Southern University. She is a founding member of the Society for the Study of the American Short Story and Director of the American Literature Association. She has recently published a defense of the mother in The Road in the CMJ. Dr. Brent Cline is an associate professor of English at Hillsdale College. He has published articles and chapters involving disability on Walker Percy, James Agee, and Daniel Keyes. His review of The Passenger/Stella Maris was published with The University Bookman. His article on The Mexican Revolution and All the Pretty Horses was just published in the CMJ. Dr. Bryan Giemza is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. He is author or editor of numerous books on American literary and cultural history, ten book chapters, and more than thirty published articles and reviews. His books include Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South, and more recently Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds (2023), and the forthcoming Across the Canyons: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Divisive Communications in West Texas and Beyond, Texas Tech UP. Dr. Allen Josephs joined us for a discussion of All the Pretty Horses. A past president of the Ernest Hemingway Foundation and Society and the South Atlantic Modern Language Association in 2008, where he was awarded the continuing honorary membership. He is the author of some 15 books, including On Hemingway and Spain: Essays and Reviews 1979 – 2013; White Wall of Spain: The Mysteries of Andalusian Culture; and For Whom the Bell Tolls: Ernest Hemingway’s Undiscovered Country. He is the author of four critical editions of the poetry of Federico García Lorca and a book of translations of Lorca’s poetry and prose, Only Mystery: Federico García Lorca’s Poetry in Word and Image. . His book On Cormac McCarthy: Essays on Mexico, Crime, Hemingway and God, was published in 2016. Dr. Josephs is professor emeritus from the University of West Florida where has taught for more than five decades and now resides in Spain. As always, readers are warned: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll someday see the light. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is nominally still on Twitter/X. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S3 · E51
May 4, 2024 · 1 hr 27 min
Episode 51: Teaching McCarthy Round Table
Send us Fan Mail Although the fact often goes unacknowledged, it is a truth that sometimes an author’s residence within and endurance in the canon is a result of how that author is perceived and taught in the academy. Most literary scholars are also professors and teachers. For this episode of Reading McCarthy I round up some of the usual suspects for a panel discussion upon teaching the works of McCarthy to students. The guests include 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 Iraq and Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, Screen. She is editor of the collection Violence in Literature and, with Ben West, co-editor of Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy. She has been editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal since 2010. She is the President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. Dr. Bill Hardwig is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee. He is author of Upon Provincialism: Southern Literature and National Periodical Culture, 1870-1900 ( UVA Press 2013). He has edited critical editions of In the Tennessee Mountains by Mary Murfree and a forthcoming edition of Evelyn Scott’s Background in Tennessee and is co-editor with Susanna Ashton of Approaches to Teaching the Works of Charles W. Chesnutt in the MLA teaching series. He is currently working on a study of McCarthy’s fiction tentatively titled How Cormac Works: McCarthy, Language, and Style. Bryan Giemza is an Associate Professor of Humanities and Literature in the Honors College at Texas Tech University. Dr. Giemza is author or editor of numerous books on American literary and cultural history, 10 book chapters, and more than 30 published articles and reviews, including Irish Catholic Writers and the Invention of the American South, which received the South Atlantic Modern Language Association's Studies Award and features a chapter on McCarthy, as well as Images of Depression-Era Louisiana: The FSA Photographs of Ben Shahn, Russell Lee, and Marion Post Wolcott ). His most recent books are Science and Literature in Cormac McCarthy’s Expanding Worlds (2023), and Across the Canyons: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Divisive Communications in West Texas and Beyond, Texas Tech UP (2024). As always, listeners should beware: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is also still somewhat on X (Twitter). The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S3 · E50
Apr 5, 2024 · 1 hr 10 min
Episode 50: Barreling through No Country for Old Men with Rick Wallach
Send us Fan Mail The guest for our 50th episode is the OG himself, the redoubtable RICK WALLACH, who joins us for a rousing discussion of No Country for Old Men. Somehow both Batman and Godzilla are referenced as we consider both the novel and the Coen Bros. film. Rick Wallach has recently retired from teaching English at the University of Miami. He is a founder of the Cormac McCarthy society, the senior and primary editor of the Cormac McCarthy Society casebook series, and editor of the two-volume collection of essays Sacred Violence as well as Myth, Legend Dust: Critical Responses to Cormac McCarthy, and co-editor with Lynnea Chapman King and the late James Welsh of From Novel to Film: No Country for Old Men. He is currently working on a new book called "In Search of Godzilla: Myth, History, and Politics in Ishiro Honda's Masterpiece." As always, readers should beware: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll someday see the light. We appreciate favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platform. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is also on Twitter. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S3 · E49
Jan 16, 2024 · 1 hr 16 min
Episode 49: a Filibuster Panel on the BORDER TRILOGY
Send us Fan Mail In this episode we head across the border one more time for a consideration of the Border Trilogy as a whole. How does knowing how the story begins and ends change how we read any of the different parts? My guests on this filibuster over the border include Dr. Nell Sullivan, a Kentuckian who earned her BA in English from Vanderbilt University and earned her PhD from Rice University. She is currently Professor of English at University of Houston-Downtown, where she teaches courses in American literature and the literature of the American South. A former editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal, she has published extensively on gender and class representation in McCarthy’s novels, and has also published essays on Katherine Dunn, William Faulkner, and Nella Larsen, among others. Her work has appeared in numerous essay collections and in such journals as Genre, Critique, The Southern Quarterly, Mississippi Quarterly, and African American Review. She’s joined by long time contributor Dr. Stephen Frye. 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 to Cormac McCarthy, and Cambridge UP’s Cormac McCarthy in Context. He has written numerous journal articles on Cormac McCarthy and other authors of the American Romanticist Tradition. Additionally, he is the author of the novel Dogwood Crossing and the book, Unguessed Kinships: Naturalism and the Geography of Hope in Cormac McCarthy, University of Alabama Press. Bringing in a breath of non-academic fresh air is Marty Priola. Voracious reader, a sometime critic, and book collector, Marty attended the Christian Brothers University of Memphis, the Publishing Institute at the University of Denver, and earned his J.D. at the University of Memphis. Marty’s website for McCarthy appreciation became the first website and a foundational part of the formation of the Cormac McCarthy Society, and he still maintains the Cormac McCarthy webpages and forums. He has written two entries on McCarthy for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. His writing is also featured in exchanges with Peter Josyph in Cormac Mccarthy’s House: Reading Mccarthy Without Walls and The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac Mccarthy: All The Pretty Horses, which he edited and published in its first (ebook) form. As always, listeners should beware: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. We appreciate favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platform. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.comThe website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
S3 · E48
Dec 16, 2023 · 1 hr 3 min
Episode 48: Tearing Down the Walls of THE STONEMASON with Nick Monk
Send us Fan Mail The guest for this episode is Dr. Nick Monk, who joins me for a consideration of perhaps McCarthy’s most idiosyncratic work. The 90s were an exciting time for McCarthy fans. In 92 he published the award winning All the Pretty Horses, followed two years later by the next installment in the Border Trilogy, The Crossing. Before he would go on to close out the trilogy in 98, however, in 1995 he also published a strange and fascinating play, The Stonemason. The play is about the Telfairs, a family of Black stone masons in Louisville, Kentucky. The play examines the mystical and perhaps metafictional notion of stone masonry. Using experimental techniques, we follow Ben Telfair in his worshipful relationship to his 100 year old stonemason grandfather, Papaw. The play was canceled both figuratively and literally before it was ever fully produced. Was it shut down because of McCarthy’s appropriation of Black life? Or because the novelist included elements in the play which are more or less impossible to stage? Both? Dr. Nick Monk is the author of True and Living Prophet of Destruction: Cormac McCarthy and Modernity, published in 2016 by the University of New Mexico Press, and he edited the collection Intertextual and Interdisciplinary Approaches to Cormac McCarthy: Borders and Crossings from 2012. Nick has also published on McCarthy and the ‘Desert Gothic,’ Native American literature – particularly Leslie Silko – intercultural communication, identity, and teaching and learning in higher education. Nick is currently Director of the Center for Transformative Teaching, and Honorary Professor in the Department of English, at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. As always, readers should beware: there be spoilers here. Thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society, although in our hearts we hope they’ll someday see the light. We appreciate favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platform. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by myself and Kirk Curnutt. To contact me, please reach out to readingmccarthy(@)gmail.com. Despite the evening redness in the west Reading McCarthy is also on Twitter. The website is at readingmccarthy.buzzsprout.com, and if you’d like to support the show you can click on the little heart symbol at the top of the webpage to buy the show a cappuccino. Support the show New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in October 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels. Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor... As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.

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