Editor's Introduction

Abstract

Covid-19 has slowed a lot of things down—including our McCarthy conferences, which we're in the process of planning for the U.S. sometime in the 2021–22 academic year, and Dublin for June 2022—but not, apparently, McCarthy scholarship. Submissions to the journal have continued apace over the last year, even increasing over the typical average, so it's edifying to see that good thinking about good literature remains a touchstone.This issue brings together scholars from several different countries with a variety of new angles on McCarthy's work. Rachel Griffis leads the issue with a piece on Llewelyn Moss and Tom Sawyer, building on previous work that examines Twain's influence but more often focuses on Huck Finn. Joey Isaac Jenkins follows with an article exploring the relationship between interspecies violence and queer desire in the Border Trilogy, opening new possibilities for queer readings of McCarthy. Joakim Hermansson and Tore Rye Anderson both analyze the dialogue between the father and son in The Road—Hermansson emphasizing the dramaturgical rhythms evident in the use of the word “okay” and the creation of an “adulthood code” and Anderson engaging with the father's own storytelling in the novel, and how he creates a plot that moves him and his son forward. Finally, Ryan Crane's article on Blood Meridian offers a new reading of the judge's tale about the harnessmaker—a cryptic and often unaddressed section of the book—and the death of the kid by unpacking the influence of Frazer's The Golden Bough.This issue concludes with a review of Cambridge University Press's new collection Cormac McCarthy in Context, edited by Steven Frye, and reviewed here by Naomi Morgenstern.