Cormac McCarthy both embodies and redefines the notion of the artist as outsider. His fiction draws on recognizable American themes and employs dense philosophical and theological subtexts, challenging readers by depicting the familiar as inscrutably foreign. The essays in this Companion offer a sophisticated yet concise introduction to McCarthy's difficult and provocative work. The contributors, an international team of McCarthy scholars, analyze some of the most well-known and commonly taught novels - Outer Dark, Blood Meridian, All the Pretty Horses and The Road - while providing detailed treatments of McCarthy's work in cinema, including the many adaptations of his novels to film. Designed for scholars, teachers and general readers, and complete with a chronology and bibliography for further reading, this Companion is an essential reference for anyone interested in gaining a deeper understanding of one of America's most celebrated living novelists.

'The collection works best when moving beyond the generalities of genre to the specificities of history and the singularities of style.' The Times Literary Supplement

Steven Frye is Professor of English at California State University, Bakersfield, and President of the Cormac McCarthy Society. He is the author of Understanding Cormac McCarthy and Historiography and Narrative Design in the American Romance, as well as numerous articles on Cormac McCarthy, Herman Melville and other novelists of the American romance tradition and the literature of the American West.