During a rare appearance in Santa Fe, N.M., in 2015, Cormac McCarthy offered a tantalizing glimpse of his work in progress: “The Passenger,” a novel that explored esoteric ideas about math, physics and the nature of consciousness.
Widely revered as one of the greatest living American writers, McCarthy has not published a novel since 2006, when he released “The Road,” a post-apocalyptic survival story that won the Pulitzer Prize and became a best seller.
This fall, McCarthy, 88, is publishing not only “The Passenger,” but also a second, related novel, titled “Stella Maris.” McCarthy’s longtime publisher, Alfred A. Knopf, will release them one month apart.
The intertwined novels — which represent a major stylistic and thematic departure for McCarthy — tell the doomed love story of a brother and sister.
The siblings, Bobby and Alicia Western, are tormented by the legacy of their father, a physicist who helped develop the atom bomb, and by their love for and obsession with one another.
Persons:
Cormac McCarthy, McCarthy, Stella Maris, ” McCarthy’s, Alfred A ., Bobby, Alicia Western
Organizations:
Alfred A . Knopf
Locations:
Santa Fe, ”