A Drowning Incident by Cormac McCarthy (1960)
Genre: Southern Gothic, Western, modernistLength: Two PagesNon Spoiler Summary:
A walk in nature reveals the story to be written; a life and death drama is played out.
My Notes on the Writer's Craft:
Cormac looks at the unnoticed things around and about this landscape. One gets the idea that their are countless stories that can be told by just taking a walk in your garden. The life and death struggle held within a spider web. The shoe of mystery left in a pool of water. He explains to me that by mowing a lawn, or going for a walk, all I need to do is look around and their will be something to write about. But how you write it is what the author must master.
Quote from Story:
In one pool an inexplicable shoe sat solemnly.
Tidbit:
- The story was written for his school newspaper the Phoenix, published in 1960 while he was attending the University of Tennessee.
- An adaptation of McCarthy's 2006 play The Sunset Limited aired on HBO in February 2011. It stars Tommy Lee Jones (who also directs) and Samuel L. Jackson.
- Cormac McCarthy was born Charles McCarthy;[1] on July 20, 1933.