Question: Famous author's two new novels hidden from sight for eight years – why?

[E G Logan]

Pulitzer Prize-winner Cormac McCarthy will bring out two new novels in late 2022, 16 years after his last, The Road.
It appears McCarthy's publisher Picador – which will launch the new works with a huge splash* – has nonetheless kept them 'a secret' (according to the New York Times) FOR EIGHT YEARS.

* total publishing will involve hardback and e-book on 25 October, with " 'Lavish' £50 slipcase special editions ... available from 6 December alongside a deluxe, numbered limited boxed set priced at £100." (The Bookseller, today). So that's some people's Christmas presents taken care of...

Is it too easy to view this as a cynical marketing ploy?

 

[E G Logan]

Whoops, got that wrong. McCarthy's current US publisher is Alfred A. Knopf, not Picador, UK publisher of The Road.
It was Knopf that kept the two new books under wraps.

 

[Pamela Jo]

I'm not a big fan. McCarthy was a darling of the literary set from the git go but no one wanted to read his stuff. He's an Easterner from New Hampshire, so he decides to write about Texas which was colonised by Easterners like George Bush in the 80's. But he doesn't write about that. No, he writes about "old Texas" which he knows f'all about. But he does it in Hemingway speak and nobody back East takes Larry McMurtry or the other writers seriously who do know the culture, the times and the people so he gets branded a genius. The Road felt more authentic. The world might be made up, but it least it wasn't a ridiculous made up world. I'll be spending my money elsewhere. There is no way to be cynical enough about marketing. Speaking as someone who's worked in advertising.

 

[MattScho]

I'm not sure that Knopf has the will to hold off on a publication ready novel for 8 years, esp as McCarthy was a hotter property 8 years ago than he is now. Frankly, he was a hotter property 6 years before that, as No Country FOM (the film adaptation) was winning it's Oscar. Instead, it speaks to a high probably that The Passenger was a mess when he submitted it (maybe just in his mind, but probably in the minds of Knopf), and it's taken 8 years of revisions to get it to the point of being ready. either that, or Knopf 8 years ago decided they had enough money, and didn't need to release a book that would have certainly been a bestseller, even if it was horrible, because of the brand.
So, is this a PR stunt? Probably, everything is, but I'd guess one brought on for literary reasons.

 

[MattScho]

I'm not a big fan. McCarthy was a darling of the literary set from the git go but no one wanted to read his stuff. He's an Easterner from New Hampshire, so he decides to write about Texas which was colonised by Easterners like George Bush in the 80's. But he doesn't write about that. No, he writes about "old Texas" which he knows f'all about. But he does it in Hemingway speak and nobody back East takes Larry McMurtry or the other writers seriously who do know the culture, the times and the people so he gets branded a genius. The Road felt more authentic. The world might be made up, but it least it wasn't a ridiculous made up world. I'll be spending my money elsewhere. There is no way to be cynical enough about marketing. Speaking as someone who's worked in advertising.

also not a fan of his