Stella Maris
Contents ( 12)
ALSO BY CORMAC McCARTHY
The Passenger
The Road
No Country for Old Men
Cities of the Plain
The Crossing
All the Pretty Horses
The Stonemason (a play)
The Gardener’s Son (a screenplay)
Blood Meridian
Suttree
Child of God
Outer Dark
The Orchard Keeper
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK
PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
Copyright © 2022 by M-71, Ltd.
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York, and distributed in Canada by Penguin Random House Canada Limited, Toronto.
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Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
ISBN 9780307269003 (hardcover)
ISBN 9780593535233 (ebook)
ISBN 9781524712402 (open market)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2022934755
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Cover images: (left) James Thew/Alamy; (right) Victority/Alamy
Cover design by Chip Kidd
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Contents
Cover
Also by Cormac McCarthy
Title Page
Copyright
Stella Maris, Black River Falls, Wisconsin
Chapter I
Chapter II
Chapter III
Chapter IV
Chapter V
Chapter VI
Chapter VII
Stella Maris
Black River Falls, Wisconsin
Established 1902
Since 1950 a non-denominational facility and hospice for the care of psychiatric medical patients.
Resident Unit October 27, 1972
Case 72-118
Patient is a twenty-year-old Jewish/Caucasian female. Attractive, possibly anorexic. Arrived at this facility six days ago apparently by bus and without luggage. Admission signed by Dr Wegner. Patient had a plastic bag full of hundred dollar bills in her purse—something over forty thousand dollars—which she attempted to give to the receptionist. Patient is a doctoral candidate in mathematics at the University of Chicago and has been diagnosed as paranoid schizophrenic with a longstanding aetiology of visual and auditory hallucinations. Resident of this facility on two prior occasions.
I
Hi. I’m Dr Cohen.
You’re not the Dr Cohen I was expecting.
Sorry about that. That would be Dr Robert Cohen.
Yes. I guess there’s no shortage of Dr Cohens.
Probably not. How are you? Are you all right?
Am I all right.
Yes.
I’m in the looney bin.
Well. Other than that, I suppose.
How long have you been doing this?
About fourteen years.
You’re going to record this.
I think that was the agreement. Is that all right?
I suppose. At the time I thought you were somebody else.
It’s not all right.
No. It’s okay. Although I should say that I only agreed to chat. Not to any kind of therapy.
Yes. Is there anything you’d like to ask me? Before we begin.
We have begun. Such as what?
Maybe you should tell me a little about yourself.
Oh boy.
No?
Are we going to paint by the numbers?