The Legacy of Cormac McCarthy: Reinventing Westerns and Mastering Prose.

Cormac McCarthy, who died this week at 89, has been widely praised for his influence on the Western genre, which he transcended and reinvented through his biblically influenced prose. His admirers can be found throughout the literary world and beyond, from prize-winning fiction writers to actors and filmmakers. For novelists of Westerns, he holds the kind of stature John le Carré has among spy novelists — as a master in the field whose work also transcended, and even reinvented it. McCarthy's influence on the genre is his alternative mythology of the West, his aesthetic vision, and the detached, dispassionate presentation of the brutal violence that was (and is) a part of the Western frontier.