Living Off Barns and Beans

Yesterday, it was announced that the celebrated writer, Cormac McCarthy, had passed away. McCarthy was this impossibly hardscrabble throwback to decades past when there was a whole class of male American writers who had the prose of sculptors but lifestyles barely above vagabond. He wrote gritty stories of gritty people living even grittier and often brutal lives.

People who haven’t read him have probably still ‘seen him,’ so to speak. The Academy Award-winning movie, No Country for Old Men, was an adaptation of his book of the same name. The man could write.

Yesterday, with his death in the news, people, naturally, started posting anecdotes about both McCarthy - the writer, the person - and his life.

Apparently, he took that whole “barely above vagabond” thing to the extreme.

When I read the quote - as someone living his own watered-down version of giving up comforts to be able to live as a writer - I think I just subconsciously nodded a little at a relatable root:

Going all in - I mean truly all in - on this particular passion (or any passion, really) is as much a commitment as it is an abandonment.

It isn’t just the affirmative choosing of a priority; it is also the demotion of anything that is discretionary to inessential and disposable.

My son is three years away from college. I have thought often that when he goes away to school, I could very easily go hole up somewhere with almost nothing more than a room with a bed, a coffeemaker, and a view. A rough cabin miles outside the nearest nothing town. A cheap upstairs apartment above the hardware store in some faraway place where rent is cheap and so is living.

I could easily choose that kind of lifestyle once my son is out of high school; and if I were to have to lay odds today, I’d wager there is a fairly good chance that, when the time comes, I will.

So… I can relate to the essence of Cormac McCarthy’s ethos: the reduction to superfluous anything that would one away from focusing on the work.

Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t in no hurry to go full dairy-barn-on-an-all-beans-diet; but, being entirely honest, it really doesn’t sound all that beyond what I could absolutely choose with not only ease but great fucking enthusiasm.

As I sit here typing this, in the back of my mind is this coming weekend… My son is going to be away for the weekend with friends. After dropping him off at school tomorrow, I will have a solid four days to myself. If there was a place even a ½-star above a dairy barn readily at my disposal, I would be bee-lining for it the second the passenger-side door slammed.

A bed, a table, an outlet, and a toilet. No other people. Barn owls would be fine.

Soooo, Mr. McCarthy, sir… I get ya, man.

I understood his side of the equation. Over on the other side, based on the quote, while his former wife had maybe been undelighted, she didn’t sound like she had necessarily been opposed throughout or aggrieved afterwards.

I mean, the plain text said she spoke “with some nostalgia.”

That’s pretty close to how I speak of the place my former wife and I stayed when we were in a town at the edge of the Thar Desert between India and Pakistan. Bare room. No windows or running water. I think it cost $9 a night… and even that was an egregious overcharge because we were foreigners. I doubt it would have topped a buck for a local. Twenty years later, I probably wouldn’t be eager to book another stay there… but I damn well tell the story “with some nostalgia.”

Twitter discourse though, being a place where nothing in the universe can exist without somehow being problematic to someone, did as it always does:

It took that single paragraph; projected onto it things not offered in it; and then went on to convict Cormac McCarthy (and men like him) on felony charges for Being Quite Terrible.

Nothing on Twitter – or on social media, really - is ever really about the person it is actually about. Every anecdote is just the introduction of a foil who people can use to discuss stuff really having nothing to do with them specifically.

That’s just how a whole lot of social media works. Any large conversation platform eventually comes to have both a large population who love a good effigy and a smaller population who can find a dark cloud above any silver lining.

In the case of McCarthy, the post I saw which fit the mold essentially said that based on his ex-wife’s quote, McCarthy was an asshole. Something to that effect.

When it crossed my timeline, it already had hundreds of replies – nearly the entirety of which were from women echoing the judgment.

For some reason, that chafed me. Of all of the things that cross my various timelines and message boxes, it’s funny what does. The things that make me bristle are often incredibly minor on their own and unimportant by themselves. However, they generally track to things which, to me, are problematic because they run afoul of things most of the people in the conversation allegedly care about and want.

In this case, the sticking point was that the complaint was rooted in deeply sublimated patriarchal ideas about gender roles and responsibilities - and the heteronormative expectations of men and women in relationships.

The structure of the complaint was 1) McCarthy had the opportunity to do something to make money and turned it down; 2) He and his wife, therefore, barely subsisted; thus 3) He was a bad person.

Left out was 1) why he refused; 2) whether their continued scant means is what they each understood and agreed to; and 3) what she did or didn’t do on her side of the ledger to contribute to their shared burdens.

It treats as a given the idea that a man is obligated to take any opportunity to make money if it would spare their wife from hardship - regardless of whether their wife is or isn’t contributing or is even willing to contribute themselves. It entirely assigns responsibility for covering the shared costs of living to the man; and it entirely assigns blame for them not being covered to the man as well.

Now, in the real story behind the quote, the person speaking was Anne DeLisle. She was a singer and dancer on a ship which McCarthy happened to travel on during a tour of Europe on fellowship. They were each in their mid-30’s. Their marriage was McCarthy’s second.

For the first several years of their marriage, they lived on the island of Ibiza off Spain. Afterwards, they moved to Kentucky or Tennessee where McCarthy bought a piece of property with a dairy barn which they converted into a home with McCarthy doing the masonry work himself.

When they first met, McCarthy was well into his second decade as a writer. He had earned very little; hadn’t gotten much attention; and had scraped by on meager income. He cared almost nothing at all about material possessions other than his Olivetti typewriter which he toted around from cheap motel to cheap motel.

McCarthy was so used to dark, dingy motels, he literally traveled with a high-watt light bulb in a camera lens case so he would have enough light to read and write by in his crappy room.

That was who he was before he met Anne DeLisle; it was largely who he remained even after winning a MacArthur award, a National Book Award, and a Pulitzer. The man was who he was.

As for turning down the speaking engagements…

He was not reclusive but he was extremely non-public about his writing. He didn’t do interviews. He didn’t do book tours. He gave interviews so infrequently, even late in his career, his agent only managed to get him to do one with the New York Times by promising he would have to do no more for many years.

So, that whole “get paid to talk about your books” thing… He didn’t do it. Ever. Never in his life. Not for free. Not for money. He entirely rejected going out in public to talk about his writing… or himself… or anything, really.

He wasn’t a social recluse though. He had friends and shot pool regularly in town and circulated locally in El Paso and elsewhere where he lived.

When it came to his art though, he created in private and then let his work stand for itself.

I have to say, as someone who aspires to write well – to maybe someday create something enduring that is rich and complicated and well imagined – I admire that.

No matter how hungry the world may be to both feast on its artists and have their art cut open and served up, that is not owed even if expected. To me, an artist caring only about their work and caring nothing at all about others’ appetite for them is a pretty pure statement of purpose. It doesn’t get much more “I am an artist to make art. It is about the art and only the art.” than that.

That was Cormac McCarthy. He created to create. Not to sell. Not to earn. Not to be popular or famous.

He constructed these towering monuments of prose; and even at the peak of his global renown, it was solely the work of writing that he cared about.

And there ain’t a damn thing wrong with that.

It might make him unsuitable partner… but that is exactly who he was when Anne DeLisle married him; it was exactly who he was throughout their marriage; and it was who he remained until he died.

DeLisle, on the other hand, moved on after their 15-year relationship to become a restaurateur. She traded in living in a converted dairy barn with her artist husband for a life in Florida with an indoor shower and a wider menu than just beans.

And there ain’t a damn thing wrong with that either.

Not one damn thing.

Over on Twitter, there’s a camp that disagrees. Based solely on the quote above, they concluded McCarthy is quite the asshole.

It isn’t that judgment itself that chafes for me. It’s the subtext: when it comes to providing to meet a couple’s shared needs, a man is required and a woman is entitled.

Thus, she either receives the benefits of the man meeting the requirement of him or she has been victimized by him.

Relationships are mutual agreements. They are consensual gives-and-gets where each pays in and receives.

The shared burdens don’t become mandates on only the man by circumstance. Hardship is a ‘we’ problem not a ‘he’ problem. The solution might be more ‘he’ than ‘she’ or it might not… but that’s a negotiation not a decree in any relationship. The man doesn’t lose his right to consent or not consent just because it would be good for the spouse.

Cormac McCarthy was not obligated to go do things he didn’t want to do in order to afford things he didn’t need just like his spouse wasn’t obligated to accept doing without things she wanted just because he didn’t. That impasse is incompatibility between two people not a one-person failure.

Bringing this all the way back around to me and my life, I fully understand that most people value material things and comforts more than I do. I understood that before opting to fling myself off the cliff into being a writer. I understand it still.

And I understood that trying to be a writer would very likely mean I wouldn’t be able to contribute a fair and mutually agreeable amount financially to a partnership.

Knowing that, in deciding to be a writer, I freely and fully accepted as a condition of that choice the reality that I may never again be in a relationship. I accepted that I may never again have the means to be able to contribute what would be fair to a partner and therefore may never have one again.

I may never have enough to lay on the table at the outset; and even if I do, I may never be able to offer an assurance that I will continue to have enough to offer without interruption or failure.

I literally thought about that, processed it, and accepted it.

Now, I certainly don’t aspire for that to prove to be the case… but there can only be one immovable post. It can either be remaining a writer or achieving a certain income. It can’t be both.

Hopefully, after having chosen which of those I would be willing to sacrifice in favor of the other, life will be kind and I’ll end up able to have both.

If I can only prioritize one though, it won’t be more money… If I have to scrape by and barely make it and live with little, I will happily do that…

…and if after I have, I someday meet someone who sees me exactly as I am; understands those terms; and believes being with me would make them happy anyway… well, then I’ve found an Anne DeLisle.

And wouldn’t that be lucky?

Even if my partner thought so too, according to those people over on Twitter, she’d be wrong… After all, I could have just abandoned what made me happy to make money I was okay doing without to buy things I didn’t want or need because I’m the man and only an asshole wouldn’t.

That doesn’t sound very Smash the Patriarchy to me.

It doesn’t even sound like believing the table should be level.

It sounds like wanting to saw off only the legs that make it tilt away while being pretty attached to the ones that leave it tilting toward you.

Anyway… Rest in Peace, Cormac.

You were a giant… The last of the bygone authentics.

I’d happily live in a barn for a tenth of your talent.