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Category Archives: Cormac McCarthy
Encounter With a Lawman in Kent Haruf's Fiction Country: Hats Off to Sheriff Ken Putnam
So I’ve just driven 900+ miles to reach the (shopping mall) mecca that is St. Louis, Missouri, and leaving Colorado I was tooling along at the wheel of my ultracool Subaru Forester (well, let’s say it’s nicely functional, which isn’t … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Coen Brothers, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Kent Haruf, The West
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Review of Kent Wascom's "The Blood of Heaven," Plus a Mission Debrief
So my review of Kent Wascom’s impressive debut novel, The Blood of Heaven, appears today in the Dallas Morning News, here. It’s a rollicking book, and I have to say I keep thinking of that Hatfields & McCoys miniseries whenever … Continue reading
On "The Road," Choking on Smoke
So I’ve owned a house in southern Colorado for ten years, and during that time have seen our summer weather go up and down, some years wet and some years dry, only it always seems to be trending toward hotter … Continue reading
"The Bird Saviors" as an Example of "Cli-Fi": The Hot, New Literary Subgenre—Climate Fiction
So I’m amused to see this piece on NPR books, which defines a new literary subgenre called Cli-Fi, for Climate Fiction, via a good friend (Thanks, Elizabeth!), here. I’ve noticed a number of novels that have elements of Climate Change … Continue reading
Posted in Birding, books, Climate Change, Cormac McCarthy, Economics, The West, Weird Weather
Tagged Birding, Climate Change, Cormac McCarthy, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West, Water Crisis, Wildfires
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On Reading T.R. Fehrenbach's "Comanches: The Destruction of a People" and Jared Diamond's "The World Until Yesterday": A World Without Laws
So while teaching Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian recently, I learned he’d been inspired by T.R. Fehrenbach’s Comanches: The Destruction of a People (1975), so I picked it up. Suffice to say it was a gripping read, as I had a … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Cormac McCarthy, The West, Uncategorized
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West
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Life Imitating Art, But Softly: Russian Meteor a Mini-Version of the Fireball That Ends Civilization in Cormac McCarthy's "The Road"
So I’ve been teaching Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian (1985) for the last two weeks, although the more I know about the novel, the more I’m struck that it needs an entire semester to cover thoroughly—though if I did that, I … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Climate Change, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Climate Change, Cormac McCarthy, Good Fiction, The West, Wildfires
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Review of "The Bird Saviors" in the High Country News, and a Literary Find in Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian"
So there’s a nice review of The Bird Saviors in the High Country News (not to be confused with High Times, which is a fuzzy horse of a different color), a great journal about the West, here. I’ve been too … Continue reading
Posted in books/film, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West
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Where Do You Live? What Do You Do? & Other Ways to Define a Person
So I’m working on a new novel, which is really the only part about being a writer I like. I was just visiting a friend who went to one of my readings and commented on how cool it was to … Continue reading
Posted in books, Cormac McCarthy, The West, writing
Tagged Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, The Bird Saviors, The West
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At the Collected Works Bookstore in Santa Fe, in Cormac McCarthy Country
So last weekend I was in Santa Fe, one of the coolest cities in the U.S., and did a reading at the Collected Works Bookstore, which is a beautiful, old-fashioned, high-quality, brick-and-mortar bookstore right off the plaza, on Galisteo Street. … Continue reading
Posted in books, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Cormac McCarthy, Good Fiction, Santa Fe, The Bird Saviors, The West
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