Literary Hub » Capturing a Literary Icon: Beowulf Sheehan on Photographing Cormac McCarthy

“Cormac asks what we think of the home so far, already knowing our answers.”

Tuesday, August 12. My photograph assistant Chika and I arrive on the Santa Fe Institute, Cormac’s dwelling away from dwelling, and cargo gear into the library. Cormac is early, chatting up the kitchen workers. We introduce ourselves. Cormac is maybe 5’6” tall, and I’m 6’2”, however his beaming “pleased to meet you” makes the larger impression on everybody within the room as he shakes our arms. Before we proceed to the library, I notice the daylight coming by a aspect window. Cormac understands and obliges. He is as sort and accommodating in individual as I hoped he’d be after we first spoke three Tuesdays earlier than.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

The solar is difficult and coarse. In an adjoining courtyard, I point out the thriller and drama I see within the play of sunshine and shadow there, and I ask Cormac if he’s open to being a part of it. Yes. And how. My banter with Cormac focuses on the institute, what compels him to be right here. “My friends are here. We love the same things. We argue.” What attracts him to science? “It’s fun.” What drew him to Santa Fe? “It’s home.” We stroll to and work in several corners of the library. Beyond the library is a balcony, and past it a virtually open sky. I invite Cormac to step to the balcony’s edge and soak up “home.”

At our final institute location, an extended exterior wall of adobe other than its entrance, Cormac lastly gives extra: “Do you know the story of my typewriter?” No, I reply, simply in case the story he’s about to inform is completely different from the one I do know. He tells Chika and me that he donated his Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter to an public sale to learn the Santa Fe Institute. It fetched $250,000. A pal then went on eBay and purchased a brand new one for him for a couple of {dollars}. A proud smile rests on Cormac’s face. It won’t have come if I’d mentioned sure.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

“Do you want to come to my house and make more pictures?”

I can’t wait. We pack whereas Cormac retreats to his mates.

*

Cormac’s truck is weathered, rusted, dinged, simple to seek out in a crowd. We comply with him by the site visitors lights and intersections, out to the place streetlights flip into road indicators and abutted buildings flip into yarded properties. Farther nonetheless, because the street straightens and elongates, the view is of open area. Then, on the appropriate, a two-story, maybe 4,000-square-foot adobe home rises into view. Numerous autos sit sprawled beneath tarps throughout his dusty driveway and land. Following Cormac’s lead exterior, I ask him in regards to the vehicles he’s collected. Pointing to at least one, he says, “That’s a Corvette Stingray. I drove it back after I partied with Johnny Carson in Fort Lauderdale,” laughing to himself. My hometown.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

Inside, in the course of his grand lounge, stands a pristine billiards desk. Of course, I believe. That he financed his method by his adolescence by enjoying pool is lore. I don’t ask in regards to the desk, and he doesn’t supply remark. Instead, he invitations Chika and me upstairs. The wash of Cormac’s stairwell partitions is as lovely as an Irving Penn backdrop fabric. I {photograph} him alongside it, the solar pouring by his skylight, defining the area about him, redefining the form of his face. Atop the steps, Cormac asks what we consider the house thus far, already figuring out our solutions. I ask him to face sturdy and tall just like the columns earlier than him. After a couple of frames, he invitations us to his bed room, however first he needs to point out us his son’s room.

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From The Father of the Man: The Last Author Portrait Sitting with Cormac McCarthy by Beowulf Sheehan. Copyright © 2026. Available from Autofocus Books.