Born: 1933, Providence, Rhode IslandDied: 2023, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Cormac McCarthy was born Charles Joseph McCarthy Jr. in Providence, Rhode Island, and grew up mainly in Knoxville, Tennessee. He studied at the University of Tennessee, left without a degree and served in the U.S. Air Force from 1953 to 1957.
His first novel, The Orchard Keeper, appeared in 1965; he was still working part time at an auto-parts warehouse in Chicago while finishing it. He went on to write Blood Meridian, the Border Trilogy and No Country for Old Men, and lived in Tennessee, New Orleans, Ibiza, El Paso and New Mexico.