Novelist Cormac McCarthy to publish two fiction books this fall

NEW YORK (AP) — Cormac McCarthy has two novels coming out this fall, his first fiction releases since the Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Road” in 2006.

Publisher Alfred A. Knopf announced Tuesday that “The Passenger,” a long-rumored novel about “morality and science” and “the legacy of sin” that McCarthy reportedly began decades ago, would come out Oct. 25. “Stella Maris,” a prequel to “The Passenger” set eight years earlier, is scheduled for Nov. 22. The two works will be available as a box set on Dec. 6.

“We have a plane crash, a trove of gold coins buried deep underground and hidden in copper pipes, a rare Amati violin that vanishes, an abandoned oil rig in the middle of the ocean, and an Italian race car seized by the IRS — an utterly gripping tale,” McCarthy’s editor at Knopf, Jenny Jackson, said in a statement.

McCarthy, 88, is known for such Western and apocalyptic novels as “The Road,” “Blood Meridian” and “No Country for Old Men,” which was adapted by the Coen brothers into an Academy Award-winning movie of the same name. His other honors include a National Book Award and National Book Critics Circle Award for “All the Pretty Horses.”