From the Editor

Just remember that the things you put into your head are there forever, he said. You might want to think about that.

You forget some things, dont you?

Yes. You forget what you want to remember and you remember what you want to forget.

—Cormac McCarthy, The Road (2006)

As many WLA members have heard me say at annual conferences, Western American Literature has received more submissions on the work of Cormac McCarthy in the past ten years than on any other author (with Willa Cather a close second). In fact, we sometimes return essays immediately to their authors saying we just published an essay on McCarthy or we have another in the pipeline. After all, WAL can't turn into The Cormac McCarthy Review.

However, when two essays on McCarthy were recommended for publication in early 2009, it seemed fitting to devote this summer issue of WAL to McCarthy because he will receive the Distinguished Achievement Award at the Western Literature Association conference in Spearfish, South Dakota, in October 2009. We put out a call for essays and soon had a number of submissions, from which we chose a third to publish. (We hoped for an essay on one of the more recent novels or on the film version of No Country for Old Men, but, alas, that did not happen.) You can now do some late summer reading that will get you excited for the Spearfish conference.

As we all know, shortly after Oprah chose McCarthy's The Road for her book club, the reclusive author did a very rare interview with her on The Oprah Show. Perhaps WAL will follow up this special issue and the Distinguished Achievement Award with a request for an interview …

Are we going to die?

Sometime. Not now.

—The Road