“This ferry was taken over by the Yumas and operated for them by a man named Callaghan, but within days it was burned and Callaghan's headless body floated anonymously downriver, a vulture standing between the shoulderblades in clerical black, silent rider to the sea.”

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.