-Cormac McCarthy was born on July 20, 1933 in Providence, Rhone Island.
-He was the third of 6 children to Charles Joseph and Gladys Christina McGrail McCarthy.
-When McCarthy was 4 him and his family moved to Tennessee for his fathers job.
-He went to the university of Tennessee from 1951–52 and 1957–59 but never graduated.
-While at UT he published two stories in the Phoenix and was awarded the Ingram Merrill award for creative writing twice.
-while at UT he met his first wife lee Holleman who he had a child with, but divorced him because he wanted to pursue a career in writing and she didn't believe it would be successful
-He married his second wife Annie DeLisle in 1967 but later divorced in 1981.
-In 1997 he married his 3rd wife Jennifer Winkley, which he had his second son, but again divorced in 2006.
-In total he has been married and divorced 3 times and has two boys, Cullen and John McCarthy.
-Since 2006 McCarthy doesn't go out and doesn't socialize.

McCarthy's greatest work was Blood Meridian. Blood Meridian is a story that follows "the kid" who is part of the Glanton gang, a group a "scalp hunters" who massacred native Americans during the late 1800's. Although it was met with mediocre reviews at first, it is now looked at as McCarthy's masterpiece and considered one of the best novels of all time. Time magazine included it in the top 100 American novels of the last century in 2005.

"The universe is no narrow thing and the order within it is not constrained by any latitude in its conception to repeat what exists in one part in any other part. Even in this world more things exist without our knowledge than with it and the order in creation which you see is that which you have put there, like a string in a maze, so that you shall not lose your way. For existence has its own order and that no man's mind can compass, that mind itself being but a fact among others.”

After reading one of Cormac McCarthy's books, and researching him, I am really interested in reading Blood Meridian.

McCarthy's significance to American literature is his writing style. He uses horror and real life emotions to draw his readers into his books. His way of writing has brought back a writing style many people thought was lost.

My essential question is, "How do authors use violence to elevate the readers emotions?" McCarthy relates to the question directly, because the main themes from all of his books is some type of violence. He uses violence to draw readers in and make them more interested and want to continue to read. With violence the author can elevate readers emotions from angry to sad to horrified.

Cormac McCarthy is considered one of the greatest western novelists of the 20th and 21st century. He has had 3 other famous books, but none as much as Blood Meridian. He still continues to write and rumored to have a new book coming soon.