Before publishing All the Pretty Horses in 1992, Cormac McCarthy was a popular writer among literary critics but had never received commercial success. All the Pretty Horses changed that: it was McCarthy's first book with both widespread readership and critical acclaim.
Interestingly, it likely wasn’t the novel itself that made McCarthy famous. In terms of his body of work so far, it was written in characteristic McCarthy style and with similar themes: long descriptive sentences, little punctuation, little narrative oversight, and violence. Instead, the moment in time that All the Pretty Horses was published is what probably pushed it over into the realm of commercial success.
In 1992,...
