Cormac McCarthy, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author whose searing novel No Country for Old Men served as the foundation for the Coen brothers’ 2007 film that earned Oscars for best picture, supporting actor, directing and adapted screenplay, has died.
He was 89.
Cormac McCarthy cause of death
McCarthy passed away on Tuesday at his home in Sante Fe, New Mexico, his publisher Knopf confirmed.
In a statement it said: ‘Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy died today of natural causes at his home in Santa Fe, New Mexico. He was eighty-nine years old. His death was confirmed by his son, John McCarthy.’
McCarthy was born Charles McCarthy Jr. on July 20, 1933, in Providence, Rhode Island, one of six children in an Irish Catholic family.
When McCarthy was a child, his family relocated to Knoxville, Tennessee, where his father worked as a lawyer. “We were considered rich because all the people around us were living in one- or two-room shacks,” McCarthy told The New York times in a rare interview.
In the early ’50s, McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee, but dropped out to join the Air Force. Following his service, he returned to the university and published two short stories in student literary magazine “The Phoenix” before dropping out for good.
He published his first novel, “The Orchard Keeper,” in 1965, which won the William Faulkner Foundation Award for notable first novel. That and his next three books were set in Appalachian Tennessee and heavily stamped by his Southern upbringing.