Knopf, his publisher, said in a statement that this son, John, had confirmed the death. Mr. McCarthy’s fiction took a dark view of the human condition and was often macabre. He decorated his novels with scalpings, beheadings, arson, rape, incest, necrophilia and cannibalism. “There’s no such thing as life without bloodshed,” he told The New York Times magazine in 1992 in a rare interview. While not quite as reclusive as Thomas Pynchon, Mr. McCarthy gave no readings and no blurbs for the jackets of other writers’ books.

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Persons: Cormac McCarthy, grotesques, ”, Knopf, John, scalpings, “, Thomas Pynchon, McCarthy Organizations: New York Times Locations: American, Santa Fe