Cormac McCarthy

Sara Spurgeon is Assistant Professor of Literatures of the American Southwest, Texas Tech University, USA.

‘Fascinating and provocative, these essays illuminate what one contributor calls the "terrible beauty" of three of Cormac McCarthy's best-known and more recent "primal fictions." With Sara Spurgeon's elegant introduction, this collection is both a helpful overview and an in-depth, philosophical and cultural exploration of one of the greatest writers in English today.'

• Series Preface; Introduction, Sara L. Spurgeon (Texas Tech University, USA); Part I: All the Pretty Horses (1991); Introduction; 1. "This is Another Country": The Complex Feminine Presence in All the Pretty Horses, Linda Woodson (The University of Texas at San Antonio, USA); 2. A Case of Maladaptation: All the Pretty Horses, One Rough Ride from National Book Award Winner to Film-Flam David N. Cremean (Black Hills State University; Spearfish, USA); 3. Hang and Rattle: John Grady Cole's Horsebreaking in Typescript, Novel, and Film, Stacey Peebles (University of Houston, USA); Part II: No Country for Old Men (2005); Introduction; 4. "Mercantile Ethics": No Country for Old Men and the Narcocorrido, Stephen Tatum (University of Utah, Salt Lake City, USA); 5. "Do you see?" Elliptic Levels in No Country for Old Men, Jay Ellis (University of Colorado at Boulder, USA); 6. Evil, Mood, and Reflection in the Coen Brothers' No Country for Old Men, Dan Flory (Montana State University, USA); Part III: The Road (2006); Introduction; 7. "Everything uncoupled from its shoring": Quandaries of Epistemology and Ethics in The Road, Donovan Gwinner (Black Hills State University; Spearfish, USA); 8. "Barren, silent, godless": Ecodisaster and the Post-Abundant Landscape in The Road, Susan Kollin (Montana State University, Bozeman, USA); 9. He Ought Not Have Done It: McCarthy and Apocalypse, Dana Phillips (Towson University, USA); Further Reading; Notes on Contributors; Index.