SOURCE: "Inner Dark: or, The Place of Cormac McCarthy," in The Southern Review, Vol. 26, No. 2, April, 1990, pp. 293-309.
In the following essay, Winchell maintains that the "pyrotechnical use of language that is McCarthy's distinctive signature as a writer" is the author's greatest achievement. Winchell also discusses the influence of Faulkner on McCarthy's work and comments at length on the "revulsion" and "horror" found in the novels.