At 42, Cormac McCarthy Began a Relationship with a 16-Year-Old Girl

That’s the heading. In 1976, when Cormac McCarthy was 42 years old, he started a relationship with a 16-year-old lady he fulfilled by the swimmingpool of a motel in Tucson, Arizona. The lady’s name was Augusta Britt, and the relationship continued in trick for 47 years. Following McCarthy’s death in June 2023, Britt chose to go public. The outcome is a long, weird profile in Vanity Fair in which Vincenzo Barney positions the relationship not as abuse however as “the craziest love story in literary history.” I cannot state this loudly enough: what the real fuck?

Before she satisfied McCarthy, Britt had experienced substantial violence. When she was 11, she was the victim of a distressing occasion that she explains as havingactually damaged her household. Then she was in and out of foster homes, some of which were likewise violent. She acknowledged McCarthy that day in 1976 and asked him to indication her book. He asked her why she was bring a weapon. The address: after being hit by her daddy and foster momsanddads, she felt the requirement to safeguard herself. Where he needsto haveactually seen a susceptible kid, McCarthy rather saw his muse. Sure sounds like grooming. Sure sounds like criminal habits. But you wouldn’t understand it from the profile.

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Throughout the piece, which is obtuse at finest, Barney not simply accepts Britt’s descriptions (she does not explain the relationship as violent) however glamorizes the relationship and even appears to havecompassion with McCarthy’s position. “Just picture for a minute,” he composes,”

You’re an unapprecia