Kevin McCarthy's Blog

The Wintering Place in the Historical Fiction Roundup, New York Times

A Cornucopia of Stories From the Past, Satisfying All Appetites

There’s something for everyone in this season’s bumper crop 

of novels set in other times and places.

 https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/02/books/review/new-historical-fiction.html

Nice little write up in the NY Times!

Released today in the USA and Canada, my followup to Wol...

 

Released today in the USA and Canada, my followup to Wolves of Eden. The Wintering Place, available in all good and not so good  bookshops ... (Wait. Is there such a thing as a 'not so good' bookshop?) and wherever you get your books online. Out in Ireland and UK in February 2023.

From: https://www.publishersweekly.com/9781...

The Wintering PlaceKevin McCarthy. Norton, $27.95 (308) ISBN 978-1-324-02048-6McCarthy follows up Wolves of Eden with another tough tale of the Dakota Territory, one as bloody and visceral as a Sam Peckinpah film. It’s 1867 and Irish immigrants Thomas Sugrue and his younger brother, Michael, are mired in a brutal struggle for survival. Both have fled a murder charge in their home country and served with Union forces in the American Civil War. Tom and his lover Sara—who is half French, half Indigenous, and whom Tom recently liberated from abusive captors by more killings—have just rescued Michael from a near-scalping and sure death following a Sioux onslaught at their fort. Over the next few months, a series of events cast the three in sharp relief against a treacherous environment that is as unforgiving as it is lawless: a deadly encounter with a pair of cutthroat fur trappers, a tense dispute with two Crow braves over rights to a pair of elk carcasses, and a final violent reckoning of unresolved grudges from the past at a frontier trading post. McCarthy effectively alternates chapters cobbled from a journal kept by Michael with stark omniscient accounts, thus combining an intimate tone with an unflinching appraisal of the territory’s harsh terms of engagement. This is a solid entry in the revisionist western fiction canon. (Nov.)

So...it's been awhile but I (and W.W. Norton) have been ...

 So...it's been awhile but I (and W.W. Norton) have been busy. The follow up to Wolves of Eden will be released in November 2022. It's called The Wintering Place. 

Long Time No Post!

So it's been...well, ages since I've posted anything here and, it being February and all, I've decided to be a bit more diligent this year. Yeah, right...  Still, here are a few pictures from events I did last year for Wolves of Eden. Thanks to all those who hosted me to promote the book, especially Professor Suzanne Matson of Boston College's English Department--Go Eagles!--whose creative writing students were an inspiration to meet and work with. Also, thanks to all those at Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon. If you love books, go there. It's several blocks of books, new and used, curated and sold by them that love and know books. It was a dream to read there. Thanks again, all! Peace in 2020!
Poster from Author Event at Boston College Display at Powell's Bookstore, Portland, OR.
Author Event in Powell's (Possibly the Best Bookstore in the World!) A Friend--Thanks Yuki!--sent me this photo of Wolves at the News and Books Kiosk in Grand Central Station, NY. What a kick! Powell's Again, (Pictures courtesy of Geoffrey McCarthy)

Review of Wolves in The Irish Story

Here is a really thorough and insightful review of Wolves of Eden by Irish historian John Dorney in the Irish Story. If you've any interest in Irish history, I can't recommend the Irish Story enough.

 http://www.theirishstory.com/2018/12/...

From the Irish Story review:  "The eerie existence of the isolated frontier fort and the savage nature of frontier warfare (on both sides) is well evoked in Wolves of Eden. Between the closing in of Kohn on the murderers and the steady escalation of the war with the Sioux, tension is ratcheted up throughout the second half of the book before reaching a bloody crescendo in its final act. The book flies along at good pace and is certainly recommended as a good and satisfying read as well as an insightful and poignant portrayal of Irish immigrants in the 19th century wars for America."

Irish Times Review

The Irish Times published a review of Wolves of Eden in last Saturday's Weekend edition.

Crime landscapes of US frontier, hypnosis, Big Pharma and GalwayNovels from Kevin McCarthy, Tanya Farrelly, Fiona Gartland, Nessa O’Mahony and Ken BruenSat, Dec 1, 2018, 06:00Declan Burke0 Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to Email App Kevin McCarthy’s first two novels, Irregulars and Peeler, were set against the backdrop of the Irish Civil War, but Wolves of Eden (WW Norton, €14.99) opens in the wake of the American civil war, with the psychologically scarred Union Army veteran Lieut Molloy dispatched to Fort Phil Kearny in the Dakota Territory to “put boots on the gallows” – ie, investigate the apparent murder of the fort’s sutler and his wife. Molloy being an alcoholic determined to drink himself to death, the investigation is largely conducted by his second-in-command, Sergeant Kohn; woven through Kohn’s attempts to penetrate the code of omerta that pertains at Fort Kearny is a rambling, semi-literate confession written by Michael O’Driscoll, an Irish immigrant who has served with the Union Army during the recent war.Wolves of EdenA compelling tale of men who were “chucked into the roaring flames of history”, Wolves of Eden is superbly detailed in its depiction of frontier soldiering, with Fort Kearny besieged by Chief Red Cloud and the story playing out against the events which led to the Fetterman Massacre of 1866. Flashing with shards of coal-black humour – Michael’s brother Tom, shot in the face at the battle of Chickamauga, has “a face that would make a funeral turn from a main road” – Wolves of Eden is a brutal, blood-soaked and unsentimental account of the Old West that bears comparison with Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian.

Wolves of Eden Selected as One of Amazon's 20 Best Books of 2018

Wow...even more delighted to announce that Wolves of Eden has been selected by Amazon as one of its 20 Best Books of 2018 as well as one of its 20 Best Books Literature & Fiction. Happy Days! A real honour to be in the company of such amazing books.

Wolves of Eden Selected as Amazon 20 Best Books of 2018

Wow...even more delighted to announce that Wolves of Eden has been selected by Amazon as one of its 20 Best Books of 2018 as well as one of its 20 Best Books Literature & Fiction. Happy Days! A real honour to be in the company of such amazing books.

Wolves of Eden a Book of the Month November 2018 Editor's Pick on Amazon

Delighted to announce that Wolves of Eden has been selected as an Editor's Pick for Book of the Month, November 2018 on Amazon. And a real honour to be on the same list as Michael Connolly and Stephen King. I've been reading King since I could read at all and Michael Connelly's Bosch novels were a real influence on my O'Keefe novels.

Delighted to announce that Wolves of Eden has been select...

Delighted to announce that Wolves of Eden has been selected as an Editor's Pick for Book of the Month, November 2018 on Amazon. And a real honour to be on the same list as Michael Connolly and Stephen King. I've been reading King since I could read at all and Michael Connelly's Bosch novels were a real influence on my O'Keefe novels.