Are there any authors like Cormac McCarthy?
Melville. Cormac McCarthy has said that Moby-Dick is his favorite book. A few commonalities: both echo the Bible in imagery and language, concrete realistic descriptions of the natural world interspersed with the narrator’s metaphysical speculations on those phenomena (side note: a number of McCarthy fans were disappointed that No Country for Old Men had ATMs when they had not been introduced at the time of the novel’s setting), the otherness of nature (especially animals – and more than that, both have plots involving “outlaw” animals) and its contrast to the civilized domestic world, and both writers feature predominantly male characters. If you haven’t read the King James Bible, you might be interested in the style of some of the Old Testament prophets – maybe Isaiah and Jeremiah. Their style is quite different, but I think many McCarthy fans would enjoy Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. I picked it up when I heard one of the McCarthy Forum old-timers, perhaps the moderator, praise it to
