Vanity Fair under fire for 'glorifying' Cormac McCarthy's sexual relationship with underage 'muse'

Vanity Fair is under fire for 'glorifying' and 'romanticizing' author Cormac McCarthy's sexual relationship with his underage 'muse'. 

The American novelist's secret underage muse was revealed in a piece yesterday more than a year after his death from prostate cancer. 

The Vanity Fair article's characterization of the highly questionable relationship has ignited outrage across social media.

The article, written by Vincenzo Barney, centers around Augusta Britt, now 64, who recounts her relationship with McCarthy and their first meeting at a hotel pool in Tucson, Arizona, when she was a troubled foster child.

Britt described how she approached McCarthy, then 42, with a copy of his debut novel, The Orchard Keeper, seeking his autograph.

At the time, Britt explained how she had no intention of starting a relationship with him but described how their relationship developed and how he she believes he 'saved her life.'

But the outlet is under fire over the author's description of their controversial  relationship. Their meeting marked the beginning of what the article portrays as a 'crazy' and unconventional love story.

'Just imagine for a moment: You're an unappreciated literary genius who has not even hit your stride before going out of print,' the author wrote.

You're sitting by a pool at a cheap motel when a beautiful 16-year-old runaway sidles up to you with a stolen gun in one hand and your debut novel in the other. She flickers with comic innocence yet tragic experience beyond her years and an atavistic insistence on survival on her own terms.' 

The Vanity Fair piece characterizes Britt as McCarthy's 'secret muse.' 

'And just like that, with the impatient grandeur below accident, coincidence, you’re introduced to your muse, a moral hero, a girl with a stuffed kitten named John Grady Cole,' Barney wrote.

In the interview, Britt reflects on how McCarthy took her away from her troubled life and depicts him as a sort of savior figure.

'Whenever McCarthy was back in town, he’d see Britt, leaving cab or phone money for her between the third and fourth Wall Street Journal in the Denny’s on Miracle Mile, she says,' he wrote. 

'He was 43, she was 17. The image is startling, possibly illegal. At the very least, it raises questions about inappropriate power dynamics and the specter of premeditated grooming. But not to Britt—who had suffered unspeakable violence at the hands of many men in her young life—then or now.'

But critics say that while Britt's perspective might be understandable due to her troubled upbringing, the author and publication irresponsibly brushes over the major ethical and legal issues in their story.

He writes that the FBI even came after McCarthy after being contacted by the girl’s family. 

'Though trouble also came immediately, according to Britt, in the form of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,' Barney wrote. '... And then the police started questioning people at the motel. So they had his license plate, make of his car. And at that point he was wanted for statutory rape and the Mann Act. But he was undaunted. I think he kind of liked it, actually,” she grins.' 

Social media users have expressed disgust over what they see as the romanticizing of a deeply problematic power dynamic.

'Genuinely stunned this got published,' one commenter wrote, 'The writer is positively drooling over the thought of an exploited, abused 16-year-old girl. He celebrates Cormac McCarthy's pedophilia (he was 42!) as "the craziest love story." What is going on here.'

But users were not just criticizing the morality of the article's tone - they also slammed the writing style. 

'That vanity fair essay is a train wreck,' another user wrote on X. 'I don't care remotely enough about Cormac Mccarthy to care that he was banging a teenager 40 years ago but I *do* care that professional editors are signing off on phrases like "the pure perfume between the open thighs of a book" in 2024.'

'The Cormac Mccarthy muse article makes me cry,' another user commented. 

'It’s not enough that there was a long line of men who abused Augusta Britt or thought their enabling was a funny story to tell around the fire, now this author comes along and loves her abuse as a window into his idol. grim.' 

Other news outlets are also slamming the author's work. 

'Unfortunately, the impact of Barney’s good work is undone by one inescapable fact: he cannot write,' writes a review in the Telegraph. 

'His prose is terrible, overwrought, nonsensical. It is so bad that it isn’t even funny,' the article continues. 'Things start badly — the first paragraph actually reads “I’m about to tell you the craziest love story in literary history. And before you ransack the canon for a glamorous rebuttal, I must warn you: Its preeminence is conclusive” — and rapidly get worse.'

'Perhaps more troubling than the mangled prose, Barney seems to treat McCarthy’s paedophilic interest in the vulnerable teenager as a great love story. It is a scarcely unbelievable stance to take in 2024, seven years after the #MeToo scandal first broke and seven decades following the publication of Lolita.'

Vanity Fair and the article's author, Vincenzo Barney, were contacted for comment but have not yet responded as of the time of publication.