639 - Vincenzo Barney (Cormac McCarthy and Sudden Fame)

Young guy writes a Substack piece about his favorite author, Cormac McCarthy. It gets a few reads, and turns out that one of those readers knows old Cormac and actually reads him the piece. In fact, she’s known and loved old Cormac for 40+ years. She corresponds with the young guy and eventually decides he’s the right person to tell her story, which is a love story that began almost half a century ago, when she was a homeless 16 year-old girl who randomly met a not yet famous author in his 40s sitting by the pool at a run-down motel in New Mexico. Crazy, wild love story/lifelong friendship commences. Young guy writes this forbidden love story, publishes it in Vanity Fair in prissy, easily offended 2024, and all hell breaks loose.

Vincenzo’s Substack is here. Vincenzo’s professor’s Substack is here.

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Intro music “Brightside of the Sun,” by Basin and Range. “Star People,” by George Michael. “Come on in My Kitchen,” sung by Chris Thomas King.

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