RELEVANT Magazine

I recently watched an interview that Oprah did with author Cormac McCarthy. He’s known to be very shy of publicity and has only given two or three interviews through the entire course of his career, so I was interested to see what he would be like. He seemed shy, and affable, and thoughtful, and completely without ego, which was refreshing in the extreme considering how lauded his writing is for books such as those in the “Border Trilogy,” Blood Meridian, and this year’s Pulitzer Prize winner, The Road. This year I read The Road and The Crossing and was deeply moved by them both. However, when Oprah asked why his books don’t feature more women characters, he replied something to the effect that he didn’t understand women, that they were mysteries to him.

Let it be said from the outset that I am in no way criticizing McCarthy for not writing more women characters. No one author, with the possible exception of the entire body of Shakespeare’s works, can completely capture the total of human experience, nor should any author be...