A review by kdawn999
Stella Maris by Cormac McCarthy

2.0

In this coda to The Passenger, we get a few story details which enable an alternate reading of the companion book. As written, however, Stella Maris can’t stand on its own. The entire book is written in dialogue—a transcript of the young patient and her latest psychiatrist in which he, the psychiatrist, digs for his patient’s salacious revelations of incestuous desire. Like in The Passenger, I find this animating focus problematic and, what’s worse, shallow. For all the pretentious prattle in the dialogue, nothing quite hits home. We don’t learn much emotionally about love, madness, or the nature of reality. No matter an author’s linguistic verve, I have a hard time investing in a book without heart.