Books
The Invisible Man
El Paso author Cormac McCarthy has always shunned fame, but his latest novel may nally force him into the spotlight.
(Page 2 of 2)
Eventually his friends began to buy his books and read them, yet they soon noticed that this was not only not a requirement but seemingly a matter of complete irrelevance to him. Nowadays McCarthy is close to a few other local writers, notably University of Texas at El Paso writer in residence Rick DeMarinis, McCarthy’s neighbor. But far from resembling the denizens who slouch around tables at Elaine’s in New York, his circle of friends is indicative of El Paso’s oddball jet set. They include attorney and airplane collector Malcolm McGregor; clothing industry heir Jim Farah and his photographer wife, Cynthia; U.S. magistrate Janet Ruesch; sculptor James Drake; rancher Ralph “Punko” Lowenfield; and local rare-book dealer Irving Brown of HI Books.
Most of Cormac McCarthy’s friends are unaffected but colorful, which suits the author’s tastes. Few living novelists can equal McCarthy’s gift for creating characters of mythological proportions, ranging from the comical (Gene Harrogate, the hapless bumpkin in Suttree who exhibits a fondness for having sex with watermelons) to the grotesque (Lester Ballard, the murderous protagonist in Child of God who wears the clothes of his victims), the sublime (the regal duenna Alfonsa who stands between her willful grandniece and the cowboy protagonist in All the Pretty Horses) to the purely outrageous (Blood Meridian ’s hairless seven-foot-tall Judge Holden, a well-spoken linguist, astronomer, and child molester). But McCarthy has his own unique dimensions. He lives alone in a quiet neighborhood, in a stone house filled with almost nothing but books. Prior to this he lived in a motel, where he began the practice of having his mail delivered to attorney Bobby Perel’s office—a habit he continues, presumably to avoid solicitors. He takes his meals at the neighborhood Luby’s and the Village Inn Pancake House, occasionally splurging at the Westin Hotel or at a favored Juárez restaurant. He reads books while he eats; when disturbed by a visitor, McCarthy will smile politely—“But he never asks you to sit down,” says El Paso Herald-Post columnist Betty Ligon, an admirer of the author despite his unwillingness to be interviewed by her.
Though friends speak of his slavish commitment to his work, McCarthy is not a bona fide recluse. Like Thomas Pynchon in New York, McCarthy socializes freely, with the knowledge that his close friends won’t blow his cover. His friends who pick him up and drop him off at his house (McCarthy seldom drives, though Rick DeMarinis has given him access to a truck) insist that it’s not so odd that he never invites them inside. “He says his place is a mess,” says Irving Brown with a shrug. He enjoys canoeing in Utah and has recently become a decent golfer; Perel describes McCarthy as “one hell of a pool player.” During an earlier stage of his life, he was also one hell of a drinker, but he hasn’t touched alcohol since shortly after his arrival in El Paso. “I think drinking posed a distraction to his writing,” says Perel, “just as the publicity trail is a distraction to his writing.”
McCarthy does not give lectures, do readings, or show any interest in the goings-on of the publishing world. “Cormac has staked out a life completely outside the literary system,” says Amanda Urban. He is indifferent to current fiction, including that of the many contemporary writers who deeply admire McCarthy’s work. Instead he belongs to a science book club and devours everything he can on quantum physics, North Mexican fauna, and the behavior of whales. When a friend expressed her interest in civil rights issues, McCarthy immediately recommended an African American oral history titled Dry Long So. If to many writers the “literary life” means endless fraternizing and grandstanding, to Cormac McCarthy it means learning everything he can about the world that he and his characters inhabit.
His friends “have an unspoken conspiracy to keep his privacy,” claims Betty Ligon, and perhaps this is so. But soon McCarthy’s friends may not have much to say about it. He joked to a friend one day that, considering the attention All the Pretty Horses was receiving, “I’m going to need a staff and a nurse.” One day Irving Brown received a letter from a well-known movie producer who wanted to purchase the film rights to all of McCarthy’s six novels and wanted the book dealer to deliver this message to the novelist right away. Brown phoned McCarthy, who told him he couldn’t be bothered with it. Still, more and more requests are likely to come from people who don’t care much about McCarthy’s desire for privacy—people who want things yesterday, who don’t take no for an answer. Some of his friends worry about the rumor that McCarthy will eventually relocate to Spain, where his son is getting married this summer. They haven’t seen evidence yet that he is set on leaving El Paso. On the other hand, none of them seems to know exactly why he left Knoxville to come here sixteen years ago.
While in El Paso one morning, I drove to the address I had determined to be the residence of Cormac McCarthy. The neighborhood, though sunny and well scrubbed, seemed suddenly evacuated: no pedestrians, no traffic, no dogs, not a single noise. I felt a little unsettled. Had McCarthy discovered a ghost town within a city? Or was this silent precinct peopled only by brilliant loners?
I pulled up next to his house, a distinctly Andalusian structure of whitewashed stone with black iron grilles over the windows, slightly soot-stained in appearance but otherwise neatly kept. On the porch stood Cormac McCarthy. He wore loose-fitting khakis and a crewneck sweater despite the early onset of an El Paso summer. His hands were at his sides; one of them held a book. He focused upon me with those piercing, seen-it-all eyes. I stared back at him with eyes far less knowing. McCarthy was aware that I was in town, of course. He had refused an interview, refused a dinner invitation. Nothing personal, his friends assured me; he just doesn’t like to answer questions.
So be it. I stayed in the car, and after a few seconds McCarthy turned toward his door. The moment he did so, the shadows on the porch seemed to swallow him up, like a storybook character receding at the turning of the page. Now the porch was empty, but I had not imagined him. Cormac McCarthy had simply gone inside, where his work awaited him.
Pages: 1 2
My Library
