“The heart beneath the breastbone pumping. The blood on its appointed rounds. Life in small places, narrow crannies. In the leaves, the toad's pulse. The delicate cellular warfare in a waterdrop. A dextrocardiac, said the smiling doctor. Your heart's in the right place. Weathershrunk and loveless. The skin drawn and split like an overripe fruit.”

American author

Cormac McCarthy was an American author known for fiction and drama that moved across the Western, post-apocalyptic, and Southern Gothic traditions. He is credited with twelve novels, two plays, five screenplays, and three short stories. His work is marked by stark violence, spare punctuation, and minimal use of quotation attributions. Across those books and scripts, he developed a voice that is lean, severe, and closely associated with the American literary canon.