The Wrong Reader's Guide to Cormac McCarthy: All The Pretty Horses

by Peter Josyph

First Edition. First Printing. 267 pages, a fine paperback with an original cover painting by the author, interior pages on Cougar with 14 color illustrations, also by the author. Ivesian Arts Publishing's premiere offering. The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac All the Pretty Horses is an impassioned tribute to one of the most popular and enduring novels by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Cormac McCarthy. ​ From his provocative reflection on the importance of McCarthy's dramatic prose-poetry in "How Cormac McCarthy Saved Civilization," to close readings of small moments that open up worlds of discovery, Josyph changes our perspective on this seminal work by one of our greatest living authors. In what he calls “a reader’s memoir,” Josyph invites noted McCarthy scholars such as Marty Priola and Wesley Morgan, as well as McCarthy's award-winning Portuguese translator Paolo Faria, to enrich his investigations with their expertise and insights. ​ How is the hero of the novel like Shakespeare's Hamlet? Is it possible he is more a Comanche than a cowboy? Can a sympathetic protagonist be equally heroic and self-destructive? Exactly what sort of town is he leaving? How do film and audio renderings of McCarthy contribute to understanding his text? In answering such questions, Josyph raises others as he—a native New Yorker—walks his great city and also travels to significant locations in the novel, such as San Angelo, Texas, where the story begins. ​ The Wrong Reader’s Guide to Cormac All the Pretty Horses includes 14 color illustrations by the author. ​

267 pages, Perfect Paperback

Published January 1, 2021