SOURCE: "Brightening Western Star," in Newsweek, June 13, 1994, p. 54.

In the following review, Jones lauds McCarthy as a "master prose stylist," and calls The Crossing "emotionally satisfying." A portion of the review is spent discussing McCarthy's emerging status as a prominent writer, and his growing fan following.

Cormac McCarthy's fans divide into two camps. The first and much smaller group fell for McCarthy years ago, when he was writing Southern Gothic novels distinguished by creepy plots full of necrophilia and incest, told in prose so rich it could rot your teeth. The second set of customers came along with the publication in 1992 of All the Pretty Horses. That novel, full of cowboys and horses, had its hair-raising moments, but it is nowhere near as nerve-racking as the rest of McCarthy's work. Ironically, this anomalous work made McCarthy a literary star. Launched by an enthusiastic promotion campaign by his new...