Would Cormac McCarthy Get Published in 2024?
Do great authors get published anymore?
If Cormac McCarthy was 30 years old right now and submitted “The Orchard Keeper,” “Outer Dark,” or “Child of God” to all the publishing houses would anyone publish him? How about later works like “The Road” or “No Country for Old Men?”
I understand there are medium-sized houses like Graywolf who are open to great works like McCarthy, but looking at the books they’ve published over the past couple of years McCarthy wouldn’t seem like a good fit.
One thing that has changed over the past fifteen years is that it’s harder to break into the writing industry for literary fiction. There are fewer readers in the genre than ever and with DEI quotas at every major house how much space is left for great writers? Phillip Meyer who writes books comparable to the quality of the Border Trilogy has a deal with Ecco Press. But, Meyer has been in the publishing game since the mid-2000s before the rise of digital technology.
I think it would be impossible for McCarthy to get his first three novels published by any medium/large house. But, what about masterpieces like Suttree and Blood Meridian? Well, we already know how the general public reacted to those novels. Both sold under 2,000 copies in their run before All the Pretty Horses was published. Blood Meridian also didn’t get enough attention or support to pull in its modern reading audience who love violent works of art.
Shock art bros and messed up people who love violence are the only reasons Blood Meridian retain its cult status and word-of-mouth power. That status is continually reinforced by things like No Country for Old Men’s violent protagonist Anton Chirgurh whose violent soul gained mainstream normalcy through the Academy giving the film a Best Picture award. McCarthy’s “The Road” which made Oprah’s book club list and turned into another feature film cemented this new audience as the majority of McCarthy readers. Wendigoon and the new Blood Meridian movie will reinforce this further.
On Goodreads, Suttree has 20,000 reviews and Blood Meridian has 150,000 reviews. One could easily argue that Suttree is the better novel, but it has none of the violence. Child of God has 44,000 reviews and is 10% the novel of Suttree, but this new violence-loving audience loves the idea of necrophilia.
So, if a guy like McCarthy was starting from nothing and submitted Suttree would anyone even care? How about The Passenger? Even crazier is to think that Blood Meridian may not be published. The base consciousness lovers of violence need to be told what to like. I understand there are masterpieces in the horror/violence genre, and that there is a big group of people who appreciate elevated aesthetics, plots, and creativity in that field. But, the majority of fans in the genre are common people with no interest in going deep and challenging themselves in any way. So, if there was no major marketing push telling people that this novel that starts slow and without violence for 60 pages is a masterpiece I don’t know if anyone is coming (same scenario as its original publication.)
I could see The Road landing a small to medium deal with a genre publisher in Speculative fiction. The Border Trilogy would probably also get a medium deal.
What do you guys think? How would Cormac fare with his work today?
Personally, I think all his novels can be published again in today's publishing landscape. I also wonder what much of the media we consume today would look like if it were not for McCarthy. He has written works that have influenced other works, such as his Westerns and The Road (influencing the creation of parent/child dramas and speculative fiction).
I’d say that it would probably be more difficult to find a publisher that would agree to publish his work, unlike when he submitted The Orchard Keeper. Like J. K. Rowling when she was trying to find a publisher and kept getting rejected.
It is a shame that the book industry and people outside the book industry still do not take self-publishing as seriously as traditional publishing. However, he could also try self-publishing and make content on social media (as unusual as that sounds for Cormac McCarthy). Share things related to reading and writing, promote the book ahead of time to a large audience, and then sell it. I think that might work for him. And his popularity could snowball from there with each proceeding work, regardless of whether he chooses to continue to self-publish or traditionally publish. And hopefully, he would have found a good editor like Albert Erskine.
Also, going off what you said in the post, Ian, I think it is sad that it is harder to break into the writing industry with literary fiction. I suppose people aren’t intelligent as they used to be, as McCarthy said in his 2022 interview. Maybe there is something that I don’t quite understand about why people do not read as much literary fiction too. Maybe people don’t have the patience to read such works.
Excellent analysis. DEI is the enemy of art, as well as many other things.