Cormac McCarthy, author of The Road, an Obituary
Cormac McCarthy, Pulitzer winning author of ‘The Road’, ‘Blood Meridian”, and “No Country for Old Men”, to name a few, died June 13th, aged 89, at his home in Santa Fe.
An influential writer, his prose was brutally visceral, lyrical and amazingly challenging. And while people know of these books, others, such as Child of God, and Outer Dark tend towards transgressive horror, and are equally amazing, and as disturbing and spare as the Road and No Country for Old Men.
In a statement announcing his passing from Penguin Random House CEO, Nihar Malaviya, they said, “For 60 years, he demonstrated an unwavering dedication to his craft, and to exploring the infinite possibilities and power of the written word.”
Shy and retiring from the spotlight, Cormac McCarthy’s ‘the Road’ was chosen as an Oprah book pick in 2007, and won him a Pulitzer, while his first critical success was in 1992, and was the first of the Border trilogy, ‘All the Pretty horses’.
From post apocalyptic travels of a father and son in ‘The Road,’ to a serial killer collecting bodies in ‘Child of God’, gritty, gruesome western ‘Blood Meridian’ (or The Evening Redness in the West) to ‘No Country for Old Men’ and his bolt gun wielding assassin, his work has shaped and influenced the work of many, and remains part of the fabric of American literature and will do for years to come. A foundational writer in southern gothic, and post-apocalyptic works, many of his themes (cannibals, incest, necrophilia) might be seen as transgressive, but are all firmly rooted in the action or inaction of his all too relatable characters.
And as his publisher added in their statement announcing his passing, and offering their own obituary, “Millions of readers around the world embraced his characters, his mythic themes, and the intimate emotional truths he laid bare on every page, in brilliant novels that will remain both timely and timeless, for generations to come.”
2022 was a bit of an ongoing horror story for me, with this volume of the trilogy reboot starting in 2019 (see what I did there?). In all seriousness, I went into 2022 saying it was going to be my year. I was so gung ho.
? Well, here’s a bonus. If you’re really looking to give yourself a kick in the pants, shoot for the moon. Make a big pledge, and make it in front of as many people as possible. So. Gulp. Here’s mine.
What if you could steal the final moments from the dying? What if you had the darkest secret, but couldn’t think what it might be? What if you entered the forest in the deep of the night. Who is the melting man? And are your neighbours really whom they appear to be? 
Their world is crowded with active volcanoes, sulfur and acid rains, permanent thick clouds turn day into deep twilight. It is a violent place: moment-to-moment survival is victory, every creature is constantly predator and prey, sleep is certain death. This is home to the longclaws, beings of super-human speed, strength and senses. Their predatory skills allow them only a tenuous niche in their hellish environment. Though smart and fierce, their rank in the food chain is far below the top. One clan leader draws from ancient legends of paradise and devises a plan to escape and take his clan to the otherworld – a world filled with slow, defenseless prey. The clan activates an Indian mound deep in southern forests and enters our world -hungry for prey. Torrential rains and washed out bridges force a runaway teen, an old dowser and a Cherokee healer to face the horrors of the clan’s merciless onslaught. Mankind’s legends are filled with vampires, werewolves, dragons and other nightmarish. Perhaps our legend of hell is based on the world of the Longclaws.
Steve Peek grew up in a family of readers and writers. In the second grade a neighbor gave him a toy printing press and, using rubber linotype, he wrote and printed a neighborhood paper. His first short story won a competition in his third grade class. Sometimes he dreamed of being a policeman, fireman, lawyer, minister, soldier, politician, but in every dream he was also a writer. Peek loves games. He enjoyed a forty year career in the game industry which allowed him to travel the world where he was able to explore many of the ancient, mythical places he’d read about. Some legends associated with these enigmatic sites led him down a winding road to a junction where myth meets science and the hold of this magical place continues its grip. Over the decades Steve always wrote. Sometimes just here and there. Twice he managed to have books published. Now, with the precious time to write, Steve found the traditional publishing world in disarray and decided that it is more important for him to write than to sell books to the big publishing houses. The venue of the e-book makes this possible. So, for better or for worse, Steve sits at a kitchen table looking into the woods around his home in the Smokey Mountains and writes every day. Reviewers have declared his books Longclaws and Alien Agenda: Why they came, Why they stayed to be a new sub-genre, ‘science faction’. Much of the books are based on history and science while the story falls under fiction. Steve’s books are based on things that interest him and he works hard to make them interesting for his readers. 
