Cormac McCarthy Journal and Penn State University Press

Starting in 2015, the Cormac McCarthy Journal will be published by Penn State University Press. This is great news for McCarthy scholarship. I think also this move demonstrates the high quality of the contributions already published in the journal thus far.

Stacey Peebles, editor of the journal, comments on the announcement:

I’m happy to announce that beginning in 2015, The Cormac McCarthy Journal will be published by Penn State University Press, which will be a boon for us in terms of design, prestige, visibility, production assistance, and availability in libraries and databases like JSTOR. Although our upcoming 2014 issue will be published before Penn State UP takes over our hard-copy production, we have already worked together to create a website for CMJ on their journals page. Clicking “Submissions” on that site will take you to our new online submissions website for the journal.

Although I’m still happy to field inquiries from my gmail address as I’ve done in the past, I’ll now direct submissions to the website, as well as use the site for readers’ reports as much as possible. We also have a new email address specifically for the journal. Access to previously published articles will soon be available through JSTOR (and hopefully MUSE) links on our Penn State UP website. When those links have been established, we’ll take down our old journal website, which has been hosted by the Texas Digital Library.

Members of The Cormac McCarthy Society who pay for “Membership with Journal” will continue to receive a subscription at no extra cost, and Penn State UP will handle subscriptions for non-member individuals as well as institutions.

This has all been possible because the community of McCarthy scholars has produced such great work over the years, and because there’s so much still to be done! Thanks to everyone who has supported CMJ by submitting work, commenting on others’ essays, subscribing, and reading with interest.

Here’s to keeping the critical conversation going!

See also,

• Cormac McCarthy Journal page at Penn State University Press website
• Current website for the Journal (latest issue: vol. 10, no. 2)
• Stacey Peebles' original announcement at CormacMcarthy.com
• Online site for submissions to the Journal 

The Road and the Re-Written Myth of the American West

The most recent issue of the open-source European Journal of American Studies is devoted to "postfrontier writing." I was happy to see McCarthy and The Road included as a dialogue partner in the discussion.

Title: "Cormac McCarthy's The Road: Rewriting the Myth of the American West"
Author: Aitor Ibarrola-Armendariz, a professor at the Universidad de Duesto in Bilbao, Spain.
Source: European Journal of American Studies ("postfrontier writing" issue, 2011)

Abstract:

This article argues that Cormac McCarthy’s latest novel, The Road (2006), marks a clear departure from the interests and aesthetics he showed in his earlier works of fiction. Apart from the fact that the Rhode Island-born writer embarks for a first time in his long career on a popular sci-fi sub-genre such as the post-apocalyptic novel, the book exhibits a number of thematic, structural, and stylistic patterns which differ quite radically from those found in his earlier novels. Most likely influenced by some recent events that have deeply shaken the country and others affecting his personal life, McCarthy can be seen to abandon the landscapes and vernacular rhythms that had become the staple of his artistic performance.

By comparing The Road to some of his earlier fiction, the article attempts to establish where those elements of discontinuity become most apparent. In spite of his deadpan naturalism and rather laconic language use, the author manages to keep his readers on their toes thanks to the novel’s much accomplished suspense concerning the fate of the two protagonists. The denouement of the story also strikes those familiar with his fiction as unusual. Still, the second half of the article reveals that, despite all these departures from his previous aesthetics and philosophical wanderings, there are also a number of elements in The Road that speak of his commitment to some values and myths that have contributed to his reputation and fame.

Outline:

1. Introduction
2. Elements of Disruption
3. Unusual denouement
4. Elements of Continuity
5. Conclusions

Conclusion:

My analysis should have made it clear, then, that his treatment of landscapes, human relations, and language itself is largely refashioned in this work. Probably, it is the ending of The Road that is most likely to catch his most faithful readers unawares. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to say whether this novel signals a definitive turning point in his literary career, for the American West is still very much present in his art and one could even read it as the culmination of his legacy of re-mythologizing the American West.