In the Grey Light

Cormac McCarthy clearly had a lot on his mind in the mid-2000s. The notoriously aloof novelist had long distanced himself from his coastal literary peers, instead throwing in with a group of scientists at the Santa Fe Institute, in New Mexico, where they investigate the interconnected relationships of “complex adaptive systems.” For nearly thirty years, McCarthy has held the unusual role of the independent think tank’s sole and unofficial artist-in-residence — an informal Homer on hand to synthesize STEM research into haunting moral tales.

As the United States grew obsessed with the War on Terror and waged twin campaigns of clinical violence on the other side of the world, McCarthy began assembling what would become, in 2006, The Road, a foundational text in a golden age of post-apocalyptic storytelling. Each morning, as he developed his clairvoyant warning of what may await us in just a few years, he would drive his young son to school before heading to his...