We kick off Season 2 of READING McCARTHY with a very special episode. Instead of having only one guest today, we’ll have three in the first part of a round table discussion of one of McCarthy’s masterworks, SUTTREE.

As part of the round table we welcome back our guest Dianne Luce, who previously appeared in episodes about The Orchard Keeper and Suttree. Dr. Luce is a founding member and past president of the Cormac McCarthy Society. Together with Edwin Arnold, she has edited two collections of articles on McCarthy, and she is the author of Reading the World: Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Period (2009). In the past decade, she has been writing a two-volume study, based on archival research, of McCarthy’s writing life at Random House, several portions of which have appeared as articles in Resources for American Literary Study and the Cormac McCarthy Journal. She holds faculty emeritus status from Midlands Tech in Columbia, SC.

Also rejoining us today for this round table on his favorite McCarthy novel is Author, Actor, Artist, Auteur, musician and composer and more Peter Josyph. Peter Josyph’s books 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; The Way of the Trumpet; What One Man Said to Another: Talks With Richard Selzer; 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; Shakespeare in New York; Hell; Bardtalk; A Few Things Basquiat Did in School; and Acting McCarthy: The Making of Billy Bob Thornton’s All the Pretty Horses. As a painter his McCarthy-related exhibitions have shown in Sweden; England; Australia; and the far countries of Texas and Kentucky. peter currently lectures on film for the Frick Estate Lectures at Nassau County Museum of Art on Long Island.

Bryan Vescio joined us for a previous discussion on McCarthy and Faith. Dr. Bryan Vescio is currently Professor and Chair of English at High Point University in North Carolina. He has previously taught at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay, Missouri Southern State University, and DePaul University. He is the author of the 2014 book Reconstruction in Literary Studies: An Informalist Approach, as well as numerous articles on American authors including Mark Twain, William Faulkner, John Steinbeck, and Nathanael West. He has published articles on works by McCarthy including Suttree, Blood Meridian, and The Road.

Music today includes an excerpt from Peter Josyph’s “Suttree’s Song,” and as always also we offer special thanks to Thomas Frye, who composed, performed, and produced the music for READING MCCARTHY. Included in this episode are (Intro) “The World to Come,” “Toadvine,” “Running with Wolves,” and “Blues for Blevins.”

The views of the host and his guests do not necessarily reflect the views of their home institutions or the Cormac McCarthy Society.

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Episode 21: Suttree Round Table, Part 1

Reading McCarthy