Reading McCarthy
READING MCCARTHY is a podcast devoted to the consideration and discussion of the works of one of our greatest American writers, Cormac McCarthy. Each episode will call upon different well-known Cormackian readers and scholars to help us explore different works and various essential aspects of McCarthy’s writing. (Note these episodes try to offer accessible literary criticism and may contain spoilers from different McCarthy works.)
Reading McCarthy
Episode 65: The End of Something in STELLA MARIS, with Nell Sullivan and Vernon Cisney
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
With this episode, READING MCCARTHY has discussed every novel published by Cormac McCarthy. Published in early December of 2022, STELLA MARIS was the last novel published by McCarthy in his lifetime. The second book in a pair of sibling novels about the Westerns, STELLA MARIS consists of a series of interviews between the troubled genius Alicia Western and a research psychiatrist. Alicia first appears in THE PASSENGER, but it is in this novel that the spotlight is firmly upon her.
My guests for this episode are Nell Sullivan, who joined us previously for episodes on McCarthy and Women Characters, on Outer Dark, on a consideration of The Border Trilogy, and the tribute episode to McCarthy. She is Professor of English at the University of Houston-Downtown, where she teaches courses in American literature, the literature of the American South, and zombies. She has published essays on William Faulkner, Nella Larsen, Katherine Dunn, and, of course, Cormac McCarthy. She is currently working on a book on McCarthy’s representation of women. Like myself and Vern Cisney, her most recent chapter on McCarthy has recently been published in the collection, New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy, Encountering The Passenger and Stellar Maris, edited by the Brothers Elmore.
Joining Dr. Sullivan is Dr. Vernon W. Cisney, who is Chair and Associate Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. He teaches at the intersections of philosophy, religion, film, literature, and politics. He is the author of Deleuze and Derrida: Difference and the Power of the Negative (2018), as well as Derrida’s Voice and Phenomenon: An Edinburgh Philosophical Guide (2014). In addition, he is the co-editor of Between Foucault and Derrida (2016); Biopower: Foucault and Beyond (2015); and The Way of Nature and the Way of Grace: Philosophical Footholds on Terrence Malick’s The Tree of Life (2016). Most recently, he has written articles and chapters included in Deleuze and Guattari Studies and New Perspectives on Cormac McCarthy: Encountering the Passenger and Stella Maris, and is currently editing with Jonathan and Rick Elmore a volume on McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.
All music for READING MCCARTHY is composed, performed, and produced by Thomas Frye.
New! A book adaptation of many of the episodes focusing on McCarthy's Southern novels is forthcoming in December, 2026. Click the link for details on Reading Cormac McCarthy: Scholars Discuss the Southern Novels.
Starting in spring of 2023, the podcast began accepting minor sponsorship offers to offset the costs of the podcast. This may cause a mild disconnect in earlier podcasts where the host asks for patrons in lieu of sponsorships. But if we compare it to a very large and naked bald man in the middle of the desert who leads you to an extinct volcano to create gunpowder, it seems pretty minor...
As always, the views of the host and his guests do not constitute the views of the Cormac McCarthy society, or their employers or institutions, or their pets or favorite sporting teams.
