In the wake of Cormac McCarthy's passing on June 13, 2023, a number of excellent tributes and discussion pieces were published. In this second of three tribute episode, we've asked for permission for the authors to read some of those tributes to McCarthy here on the podcast and we have also solicited a couple of others.

The guests this episode include:

Stacey Peebles, Chair of the English program, Director of Film Studies, and the Marlene and David Grissom Professor of Humanities at Centre College in Danville, Kentucky, author of Cormac McCarthy and Performance: Page, Stage, Screen (2017) and co-editor of Approaches to Teaching the Works of Cormac McCarthy (2022, MLA press); she has been editor of the Cormac McCarthy Journal since 2010, and is now the President of the Cormac McCarthy Society; her tribute originally appeared in Publisher's Weekly.

Bill Hardwig, Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee. His book Upon Provincialism: Southern Literature and National Periodical Culture, 1870-1900 was published by the University of Virginia Press in 2013. He has written and published various essays on McCarthy and is currently working on a book-length study of McCarthy’s fiction tentatively titled How Cormac Works: McCarthy, Language, and Style. He is also creator of the website Literary Knox (www.literaryknox.com), which presents the rich literary history of the city in which he lives and works, Knoxville, Tennessee. Previously published in The Conversation.

Marty Priola launched the first McCarthy website (Cormacmccarthy.com) and is a founding member of the Cormac McCarthy society. He has written two entries on McCarthy for the Dictionary of Literary Biography. His writing is also featured in exchanges with Peter Josyph in Cormac Mccarthy’s House: Reading Mccarthy Without Walls and The Wrong Reader’s Guide To Cormac Mccarthy: All The Pretty Horses, which he edited and published in its first (ebook) form. He wrote this piece especially for the podcast.

Casey Spinks is a Ph.D. candidate in theology at Baylor University. He is writing a dissertation on Søren Kierkegaard’s ontology in his religious discourses. He writes from Waco, Texas. His piece was published on the webzine Front Porch Republic.

Multitalented Peter Josyph has joined us for talks on Suttree and his own works, which include The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses; Adventures in Reading Cormac McCarthy; Cormac McCarthy’s House: Reading McCarthy Without Walls; Liberty Street: Encounters at Ground Zero; and The Wounded River, which was a New York Times Notable Book of 1993. His films include the award-winning Liberty Street: Alive at Ground Zero; as well as Acting McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses. Solicited for the podcast from a longer piece.

As always, readers should beware: there be spoilers here.

All music for Reading McCarthy is composed, performed, and produced by Thomas Frye. The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society. We appreciate favorable reviews on your favorite podcasting platform. If you enjoy this podcast you may also enjoy the GREAT AMERICAN NOVEL PODCAST, hosted by

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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...

Episode 44: Tribute to Cormac, part the second.

Reading McCarthy