"Most people don't ever see anyone die. It used to be if you grew up in a family you saw everybody die. They died in their bed at home with everyone gathered around. Death is the major issue in the world. For you, for me, for all of us. It just is. To not be able to talk about it is very odd."

How many people have you seen die, Cormac? 

Why are you even talking about "pleasant"death? You don't write about pleasant death. You write about cruel, heartless, torturous murder. 

Have you ever seen a murdered person like you write about? 

Ever ride along with the cops on homicide call? Go to a morgue? Have you ever been *this* close to the face of a body just pulled from the water, so close that you could see the individual pores in her face,, so close you could smell the brackish water in her mouth and coming off her water-logged corpse?

Have you ever stuck your little finger in the bullet hole in the back of a man's skull? Do you have those sharp edges fixed in your mind?

Have you ever smelled massive quantities of blood on the floor of a house? Do you have that smell fixed in your mind, Cormac? Or do you have to imagine it?

Ever smelled a "sweetie?" Know what a sweetie is?

Ever gone to the home of a man who just murdered his wife and child as they came home from church and then shot himself in the chest with the .45? Can you see the hole it made in his shirt as you sit on his couch with your feet on his coffee table, your legs propped up over him watching his TV as you think to yourself, "I don't give a SHIT about you, you piece of shit"? 

Cormac? Charles, Jr.? Chucky? 

How much of what you write about have you experienced, Mr. McCarthy?