Cormac McCarthy doesn’t do interviews. During his long career, McCarthy, 89, has sat for vanishingly few of them. Scholars of his work say he has long been resistant to publicly analyzing his writing process. Between 1968 and 1980, he gave at least 10 interviews to small local papers in Lexington, Kentucky, and east Tennessee, a region where he lived and had friends. Writing, he said, was a “compulsion” and “not a conscious process.” Asked to give practical advice to starting writers, he said, “Read.”

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Persons: Cormac McCarthy doesn’t, McCarthy, Oprah, —, “, “ Read, ” Organizations: The New York Times Locations: Lexington , Kentucky, Tennessee