Jan 2, 2010

The Road | Biography

Cormac McCarthy was born on July 20, 1933, in Rhode Island. His first name is a Gaelic word meaning “son of Charles.” Fittingly, the author’s father was indeed named Charles.

McCarthy attended the University of Tennessee, where he majored in liberal arts and where he won the Ingram-Merrill award two years in a row for creative writing. Later, he moved to Chicago, where he worked as an auto mechanic while he wrote his first novel, The Orchard Keeper (1965). Around this same time, he married Lee Holleman (a poet), but the couple divorced. They had a son. Later,...