Cormac McCarthy's fiction was a dark counter-narrative to American optimism
- Written by Paul Giles, Professor of English, Institute for Humanities and Social Sciences, ACU, Australian Catholic University

It is testimony to Cormac McCarthy’s reputation as a writer of dark and violent fictions that his publishers should explicitly have stated in their press release on Tuesday that his death was due to “natural causes”.
Normally the passing of a famous author at the age of 89 might be regarded as part of the...