Cormac McCarthy, whose early novels were often set in eastern Tennessee and whose later work focuses on the American Southwest, is frequently compared with such Southern-based writers as William Faulkner, Carson McCullers, and Flannery O'Connor. In a Dictionary of Literary Biography essay, Dianne L. Cox stated that McCarthy's work has in common with that of the others "a rustic and sometimes dark humor, intense characters, and violent plots; [he] shares as well their development of universal themes within a highly particularized fictional world, their seriousness of vision, and their vigorous exploration of the English language." "His characters are often outcasts--destitutes or criminals, or both," wrote Richard B. Woodward in the New York Times. "Death, which announces itself often, reaches down from the open sky, abruptly, with a slashed throat or a bullet in the face. The abyss opens up at any misstep."

McCarthy has often been singled out...