Capturing a Literary Icon: Beowulf Sheehan on Photographing Cormac McCarthy

Tuesday, August 12. My photo assistant Chika and I arrive at the Santa Fe Institute, Cormac’s home away from home, and load equipment into the library. Cormac is early, chatting up the kitchen staff. We introduce ourselves. Cormac is perhaps 5’6” tall, and I’m 6’2”, but his beaming “pleased to meet you” makes the greater impression on everyone in the room as he shakes our hands. Before we proceed to the library, I note the daylight coming through a side window. Cormac understands and obliges. He is as kind and accommodating in person as I hoped he’d be when we first spoke three Tuesdays before.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

The sun is hard and coarse. In an adjoining courtyard, I mention the mystery and drama I see in the play of light and shadow there, and I ask Cormac if he’s open to being part of it. Yes. And how. My banter with Cormac focuses on the institute, what compels him to be here. “My friends are here. We love the same things. We argue.” What draws him to science? “It’s fun.” What drew him to Santa Fe? “It’s home.” We walk to and work in different corners of the library. Beyond the library is a balcony, and beyond it a nearly open sky. I invite Cormac to step to the balcony’s edge and take in “home.”

At our last institute location, a long exterior wall of adobe apart from its entrance, Cormac finally offers more: “Do you know the story of my typewriter?” No, I reply, just in case the story he’s about to tell is different from the one I know. He tells Chika and me that he donated his Olivetti Lettera 32 typewriter to an auction to benefit the Santa Fe Institute. It fetched $250,000. A friend then went on eBay and bought a new one for him for a few dollars. A proud smile rests on Cormac’s face. It might not have come if I’d said yes.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

“Do you want to come to my house and make more pictures?”

I can’t wait. We pack while Cormac retreats to his friends.

*

Cormac’s truck is weathered, rusted, dinged, easy to find in a crowd. We follow him through the traffic lights and intersections, out to where streetlights turn into street signs and abutted buildings turn into yarded homes. Farther still, as the road straightens and lengthens, the view is of open space. Then, on the right, a two-story, perhaps 4,000-square-foot adobe house rises into view. Numerous vehicles sit sprawled under tarps across his dusty driveway and land. Following Cormac’s lead outside, I ask him about the cars he’s collected. Pointing to one, he says, “That’s a Corvette Stingray. I drove it back after I partied with Johnny Carson in Fort Lauderdale,” laughing to himself. My hometown.

Cormac McCarthy Photograph © Beowulf Sheehan www.beowulfsheehan.com

Inside, in the middle of his grand living room, stands a pristine billiards table. Of course, I think. That he financed his way through his early life by playing pool is lore. I don’t ask about the table, and he doesn’t offer comment. Instead, he invites Chika and me upstairs. The wash of Cormac’s stairwell walls is as beautiful as an Irving Penn backdrop cloth. I photograph him along it, the sun pouring through his skylight, defining the space about him, redefining the shape of his face. Atop the stairs, Cormac asks what we think of the home so far, already knowing our answers. I ask him to stand strong and tall like the columns before him. After a few frames, he invites us to his bedroom, but first he wants to show us his son’s room.

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From The Father of the Man: The Last Author Portrait Sitting with Cormac McCarthy by Beowulf Sheehan. Copyright © 2026. Available from Autofocus Books.