Cormac McCarthy, Legendary Author of ‘No Country for Old Men’ and ‘The Road,’ Dies at 89

Cormac McCarthy, considered to be one of the greatest authors of the past half-century, has died at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico, at the age of 89, his publisher Knopf said.

Born in Rhode Island and raised in Tennessee, McCarthy used his upbringing in the American South as the primary influence for his literary works, which were often violent, bleak and filled with morally ambiguous characters.

While he made his literary debut in 1965 with “The Orchard Keeper,” he truly broke through in 1985 with the anti-Western “Blood Meridian,” which follows an unnamed teenager who travels with a sadistic gang of bandits that massacre Native Americans before meeting their own grisly fate.

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Twenty years later, McCarthy released the neo-Western “No Country for Old Men,” which was adapted in 2007 by Joel and Ethan Coen into a Best Picture Oscar-winning film. The film follows the amoral, sociopathic killer Anton Chigurh, played by Javier Bardem, as he chases a hunter in Texas (Josh Brolin) who has stumbled upon $2 million in drug cartel money. On Chigurh’s tail is Ed Tom Bell (Tommy Lee Jones), a disenchanted sheriff planning to retire because of the overwhelming violence he sees in his job.

Other McCarthy films that made the jump from page to screen include the 1992 National Book Award winner “All the Pretty Horses,” which was adapted by Billy Bob Thornton in 2000 into a film starring Matt Damon and Penelope Cruz, and “The Road,” which won the Pulitzer Price for fiction and was adapted into a 2009 film.

McCarthy also took a step into screenwriting with “The Counselor,” a 2013 film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Fassbender as a lawyer who dips his toes in the Mexican drug trade, only to suffer violent consequences.

McCarthy married three times, each of which ended in divorce. He is survived by two sons, a brother, two sisters and two grandchildren.

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