Stella Maris Summary
Cormac McCarthy

Stella Maris Overview

Stella Maris consists of a series of seven conversations between Dr. Michael Cohen, a psychiatrist, and his troubled and brilliant patient, Alicia Western, the novel’s protagonist. Alicia is a mathematical savant and PhD candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago, who had previously been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic. The two discuss Alicia’s family, her relationship with her brother Bobby, her work in mathematics and relationships with prominent twentieth-century mathematicians, and a number of metaphysical inquiries into the nature of existence, touching on questions of language, madness, science and technology, and the existence of God. Stella Maris is a companion novel to The Passenger, also by Cormac McCarthy, in which Bobby, Alicia’s brother, is the protagonist.