Cormac McCarthy is one of the U.S.’ most celebrated authors; his works have sold millions of copies and have been adapted into award-winning films. Many of his novels, including “Blood Meridian” and “The Road,” are among the most celebrated releases in the past 50 years.
However, McCarthy will no longer be remembered solely for his literary accomplishments, nor his influence on our understanding of American individualism and its violent, colonial history. Instead, McCarthy will be remembered for his years-long sexual relationship with 16-year-old Augusta Britt.
Britt came forward with her story, and her experience with the author was published Wednesday in Vanity Fair. Britt met McCarthy at a motel when he was 42 years old; she was in and out of foster care and running away from her current home when she met him poolside while reading his relatively unknown debut novel, “The Orchard Keeper.”
What Vanity Fair’s profile of Britt fails to do is highlight the predatory implications of the relationship she had with McCarthy. It refers to Britt as McCarthy’s “muse” and focuses heavily on stylistic writing to emulate the Western setting often present in McCarthy’s work, reading like an overview of his work in addition to Britt’s life. The article’s author also frequently emphasizes his own blossoming friendship with Britt — praising McCarthy as he does — rather than making her the story’s sole focus.
The Vanity Fair profile of Britt and her life does not read like it is about her. Instead, it reads like an ego piece, praising McCarthy as a savior to a girl who lived a chaotic, abusive life, rather than decrying him as a predator. It points to all the times his own work stole details from her life as if they were fun easter eggs he hid before his death rather than as horrific milestones of an obsessive relationship with someone underage.
The journalist who spent “thousands of hours” with Britt does not see her as someone who fell victim to an exploitative man. He sees her as a saint canonized in McCarthy’s pantheon, frequently referencing her as the characters she inspired in McCarthy’s works.
That characterization is the greatest wrongdoing toward Britt. Even after McCarthy’s death, she is still just a character in his life’s story.
Unsurprisingly, this is a pattern we see far too often in classic novels written by male authors. Rarely are women the center of classic tales like McCarthy’s own works. They are sequestered to the role of love interest, the role of the protagonist’s mother and the role of Lilith who ruins everything for the man readers are supposed to be rooting for.
When Britt was hospitalized in 1977 after being hit by someone (it is undisclosed in the Vanity Fair profile if it was a foster parent or her own father), McCarthy took her to Mexico with him. She lived with him for some years before she left, but they kept in touch until his death in 2023. She frequently makes a point of saying McCarthy was not wolfish or monstrous. He only ever treated her with respect, she says.
If this were true, he wouldn’t kill the characters supposedly inspired by her more often than not. He wouldn’t have left her nothing of his multi-million dollar estate as an apology for his manipulation. He wouldn’t have slept with her at the age of 17, right after she escaped an abusive home and ended up fully in his care in a foreign country.
Vanity Fair attempted to paint Britt as anything but a victim; after all, she is living a relatively successful life with no complaints about McCarthy’s pursuit of her at the age of 16. In its attempts to do so, however, it fails to recognize there is no morally correct way for a man to pursue a 16-year-old girl. In trying to tell Britt’s story, the publication glorified McCarthy when he should have been vilified, forgetting her own life’s struggles for the sake of glamorizing a pedophile and celebrating his literary legacy.
Jackson McCoy is a sophomore studying journalism at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to share your thoughts? Let Jackson know by emailing or tweeting him at jm049122@ohio.edu or @_jackson_mccoy_.
