The Style Code of Cormac McCarthy

The author loved tweed coats and ostrich-leather cowboy boots. Hated slip-on dress shoes and monk strap loafers.

Sep 12, 2025

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THERE WAS A GREAT piece recently published in Smithsonian Magazine, where the reporter, Richard Grant, gained exclusive access to Cormac McCarthy’s former residence in Sante Fe, Mexico.

The story is about two scholars who have assembled a team to “physically examine and digitally catalog every single book in McCarthy’s enormous and chaotically disorganized personal library.”

It’s monumental task, especially when you consider the estimated number of volumes in the library is near 20,000 volumes. Richard Grant notes that Hemingway, a “voracious book collector” left behind a library 9,000 volumes.

Photo by Wayne Martin Belger for *Smithsonian*.

When I read the story, I couldn’t help but notice the images and notes about McCarthy’s closet. He didn’t just own tweed coats, but rather “hundreds” of jackets. He didn’t just own one pair of cowboy boots—he owned a vast collection of cowboy boots made from the finest leathers.

And deep in his library, among the thousands of books on topics like physics, mathematics, and history, were a few books on men’s fashion.

A Man With a Code

There aren’t many photos of Cormac McCarthy on the internet. If you start looking for photos where you can see his whole outfit (including shoes), then it’s virtually none.

Nevertheless, it’s clear from this Smithsonian story that McCarthy was a man with a strong dress code. He followed what he liked. Refined it. Then made it uniform.

Wayne Martin Belger, the photographer for the Smithsonian story, has a clever eye. He is the one who captured the images of McCarthy’s wardrobe. On a coat rack in the Sante Fe home is a collection of jackets, many of them tweed.

The story notes that, “Besides books, McCarthy compiled a wide collection of menswear, including hundreds of tweed jackets.”

Hundreds. Hundreds of tweed jackets.

Cowboy Boots Passed Down Generations

Then there’s McCarthy’s table of cowboy boots. Rich in color and stitching. The front line appears to have several pairs of ostrich leather. If I had to guess, McCarthy probably found his affinity for cowboy boots living in El Paso, TX for three decades.

The caption on this image reads, “A selection from the natty novelist’s stockpile of cowboy boots.”

The second mentioning of McCarthy’s boots actually comes from his son John McCarthy, who lived in the Sante Fe home with his dad growing up. Here is John wearing his father’s “favorite” boots. The two wear the same shoe size. (A great tidbit of information here that Richard Grant captured).)

John McCarthy. Photo by Wayne Martin Belger for *Smithsonian*

When asking John about his father, he had this to say about McCarthy at home.

‘Dad didn’t like being interrupted when he was working, or when he was reading,’ John said.

“"‘No, no, no. I’m reading. Go away!’ he would say.

But he was a great father, always there for me, and I learned so much from him. We would have these long conversations about science and history and music, and whatever else, and he was the funniest person I’ve ever met, just a natural comedian.’”

Slip-On Shoes: Those ‘Disgusting’ Old Things

Cormac, age 23, in Wales with Anne DeLisle before they were married.

McCarthy’s sense of humor brings me to his notes on men’s fashion. Among the thousands of titles in the library, scholars were surprised to find books on menswear:

“‘We’ve cataloged books on needlework and quilting.’ Rick noted McCarthy’s keen interest in clothes and fashion, which could, I granted, be described as sewing-related. McCarthy was a longtime subscriber to the fashion and style magazine W, and he had annotated many of his books about menswear.”

Slip-ons? Oh, how our opinions change over time. I still love McCarthy’s take.

They found a book called, The Suit: A Machiavellian Approach to Men’s Style, and inside McCarthy had written in pencil his opinion of slip-on dress shoes:

“disgusting.”

Lower on the page, next to a sentence on monk-strap shoes, McCarthy wrote,

“yet more horror.”

A truly hilarious, and practical, take. The American Southwest has no place for dress shoes.

The Personal Style of Cormac McCarthy

McCarthy’s style reminds me of how professional writers establish their voice over time. There’s repetition and exploration, then refinement. Before long, a man finds an aesthetic they love and it becomes an imprint of their identity.