For almost three decades, Cormac McCarthy solidified his reputation as an American "writer's writer" with remarkable novels such as his Appalachian Tales, The Orchard Keeper, Outer Dark, Child of God, Suttree, and his terrifying Western masterpiece, Blood Meridian. Then, with the publication of All the Pretty Horses, the first work of his celebrated Border Trilogy in 1992, McCarthy's popularity exploded on to a world stage. As his reputation burgeoned with the publications of The Crossing and Cities of the Plain, the critical response to McCarthy has grown apace.

Greek mythology is stranger than you might think. Gods and the Dust collects numerous stories from the ancient source material and strings them together into one fluid plot, fleshing out the sparse details into a dramatic fantasy novel. At the dawn of time, the Earth and Sky mated to populate the world. Their most powerful children are the gods and goddesses - living personifications of all things great and small, physical and conceptual. These powerful deities engage in an interconnected string of relationships and misadventures involving mortals and immortals, dispensing wrath and favor in equal measure, resulting in murders, love affairs, offspring, and wars.

This definitive assessment of Cormac McCarthy’s novels captures the interactions among the literary and mythic elements, the social dynamics of violence, and the natural world in The Orchard Keeper, Child of God, Outer Dark, Blood Meridian, and The Road. Elegantly written and deeply engaged with previous scholarship as well as interviews with the novelist, this study provides a comprehensive introduction to McCarthy’s work while offering an insightful new analysis. Drawing on René Girard’s mimetic theory, mythography, thermodynamics, and information science, Markus Wierschem identifies a literary apocalypse at the center of McCarthy’s work, one that unveils another buried deep within the history, religion, and myths of American and Western culture.

A collection of original, stimulating interpretations of key texts by Cormac McCarthy, designed for students and edited and written by leading scholars in the field

"Reconceives the moral significance of Cormac McCarthy's novels through a constructive engagement with postmodern theory and Christian theology"--

This wide-ranging book illuminates the importance of the Western in American history. It explores the interconnections between the Western in both literature and film and the United States in the 20th century.Structured chronologically, the book traces the evolution of the Western as a uniquely American form. The author argues that America's frontier past was quickly transformed into a set of symbols and myths, an American meta-narrative that came to underpin much of the 'American century'. He details how and why this process occurred, the form and function of Western myths and symbols, the evolution of this mythology, and its subversions and reconstructions throughout 20th-century American history.The book engages with the full range of historical, literary and cinematic perspectives and texts, from the founding Western histories of Theodore Roosevelt and Frederick Jackson Turner to the New Western history of Patricia Nelson Limerick and Richard White.

Don DeLillo, Paul Auster, Cormac McCarthy, Rolando Hinojosa, E. Annie Proulx, Bret Easton Ellis, Douglas Coupland, and Thomas Pynchon: An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction introduces the work of a range of key American authors, all of whom can be said to engage with postmodernism. Exploring the vitality and energy of contemporary writing in light of pessimistic proclamations on the state of postmodern American culture, Bilton highlights the tension between "realistic" description and linguistic self-consciousness in contemporary fiction. In addition, by addressing a central problem in literary theory—its neglect of literary discussion and the practice of reading—An Introduction to Contemporary American Fiction is able to present a working model for reading a text theoretically. As an introductory text, it assumes no prior knowledge of the authors of the novels discussed. To encourage understanding and aid further study, the following features are included: * GLOSSARY OF CRITICAL AND LITERARY TERMS * BIBLIOGRAPHY OF EACH AUTHOR'S WORKS * BIOGRAPHY OF EACH AUTHOR * GUIDE TO FURTHER READING * THEMATIC AND AUTHOR INDICES