Some years ago in New Orleans, I learned a word in an antiquarian bookshop, one of those places organized according to the idiosyncratic style that was no doubt an outward physical manifestation of the proprietor’s own mind and memory. On a small shelf just inside the door was the label “Crime, Murder, & Rascality.” The term “rascality,” its definition balanced so perfectly on the fulcrum between the evil and the merely mischievous, may be the perfect descriptor for the way Cormac McCarthy (1933-2023), who grew up in Knoxville, Tennessee, and died in Santa Fe, New Mexico, lived his life.

A serial raconteur, married thrice, constantly searching and moving, often spending nights in jail as a young man, whose powerful mind and good looks allowed him to chase women until his dying years, McCarthy is a product of his epoch: He simply could not have been permitted if he had come of age today.