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Recent Posts
- Aliens Among Us: Probing Hillbillies and Freaking Shut-ins, How Netflix’s “Encounters” and Hulu’s “No One Will Save You” Prep Us for the Coming Alien Apocalypse, Kind of
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- “Bobcats, Bobcats, Bobcats”: Animal Life and a Tribute to “Modern Family”
- “The North Water”: This Ain’t Your Daddy’s Moby Dick
- Day 25: On David Quammen's "Spillover": Terrific Book That Foretold Our Pandemic, Kind of
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Tag Archives: Cormac McCarthy
Imagining Storm & Fire: Hurricane Harvey, "Goodnight Texas," and The Prediction of Fiction
So a year ago, on August 24th-25th, Hurricane Harvey crashed into the Texas coast, roughly equaling, in monetary damage, the destruction of Hurricane Katrina back in 2005. Based on my novel Goodnight, Texas, you could say I predicted it: I … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Climate Change, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Climate Change, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Goodnight Texas
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In the Country of "No Country for Old Men" and On the Trail of Cormac McCarthy's "Blood Meridian": What I Did for My Summer Vacation
So late July found me (and my family) in (mythical) Cormac McCarthy country, at the Three River Petroglyph site near Three Rivers, New Mexico, which is a cool (and hot) place to be. We camped there for three days, watching … Continue reading
Guest Blog Post on the Superstition Review Website
So the nice editors over at the Superstition Review have not only published several of my stories and a recent essay—on stuffed animals, of all things—but they have also asked that I write a guest blog post for them, which … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Cormac McCarthy, writing
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Good Fiction, Tolstoy's Anna Karenina
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On Ian McGuire's "The North Water": a Revisionist "Moby Dick," With Echoes of "Blood Meridian" and "The Revenant"
So last week I had the gripping-if-ghastly reading experience of zooming through Ian McGuire’s new novel, The North Water. I’ll try to be circumspect in my comments here so as not to spoil the reading “fun” for others, as I … Continue reading
They Eat Horses, Don't They? "The Revenant" v. "Backcountry": A Tale of Two Bears, With Nods to Peter Stark's "Astoria" and David Roberts's "A Newer World"
So I’ve been getting caught up on some of the Oscar-bait for this year, as in watching Matt Damon’s improbable space rescue in The Martian, and seeing The Revenant in a local theater, where I laughed and made too many … Continue reading
Posted in Bears, books/film, Cormac McCarthy, The West
Tagged Backcountry, Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, the film, The Revenant, The West
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On William Gay's "Little Sister Death": a Novel That Puts the P in Posthumous
So I should begin by the admission that I’m a diehard William Gay fan, and have been for years, ever since reading his first novel—The Long Home (1999), which was edited/published by none other than my own editor, Greg Michalson—though … Continue reading
"Necrophilia, Anyone?" On the Horror-Show That Is James Franco's Film Adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's "Child of God"
So I’d heard that James Franco had made a film version of Cormac McCarthy’s powerful-and-disturbing novel Child of God (1974), and I casually wondered why I hadn’t heard anything about it. A year ago Franco also did a film version … Continue reading
How Is Dan Brown's "Inferno" Like "Doomsday Preppers"? Hint: Fun Factor
So I’m juggling the reading of about six different books right now, for various reasons, including Stephen D. (I think the “D.” is important here) King’s When the Money Runs Out: The End of Western Affluence (which I should really … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Cormac McCarthy
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Dan Brown's Inferno, Fiction Writing
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Cormac McCarthy/Ridley Scott's "The Counselor": No Country for Old Men II, or No Country For Anyone in Love With Penelope Cruz, Either
So on its first weekend in my neck of the woods, I caught Ridley Scott’s new film The Counselor, with the screenplay being by none other than the great Cormac McCarthy, finest novelist of our times: It was a, um, … Continue reading
Posted in books, books/film, Cormac McCarthy, Horror Films, The West
Tagged Book Reviewing, Cormac McCarthy, Fiction Writing, Film, Good Fiction, The West
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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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