Pistol Packin’ Mama

Cormac McCarthy’s Ex-Wife Invents a New Gun Holster

The ex-wife of Pulitzer Prize-winner Cormac McCarthy was arrested on assault charges that prove, among other things, that sometimes truth is stranger than even prize-winning fiction.

Consider: On the morning of Jan. 4, Jennifer McCarthy, 48, a Santa Fe, N.M., artist and former wife of Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Cormac McCarthy, was arrested on felony assault charges after her boyfriend claimed she threatened him and pulled a Smith & Wesson handgun out of her vagina, according to a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Department document published by The Smoking Gun.

The boyfriend, whose name was redacted in the arrest report, told a sheriff’s deputy the couple had argued and that McCarthy had left the residence, then returned and went into her bedroom. Shortly thereafter, the boyfriend told the officer, she emerged from the bedroom “wearing lingerie and a silver handgun in her vagina.” The boyfriend told the cops that McCarthy then “started to have inner course [sic] with the gun and stated, ‘Who is crazy, you or me?’”

It was at that point, the boyfriend told the deputy, that “Jennifer pulled the gun out and pointed the gun at his head.” The boyfriend told the officer that he grabbed the gun and threw it in the toilet, and when McCarthy tried to retrieve it, he “put it in the trash can outside.”

Santa Fe County Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Zook, the investigating officer, reported that he did find a gun in a trash can.

McCarthy’s version, according to Deputy Zook’s report, differed considerably from the boyfriend’s. “She stated they started to yell at each other and he told her not to touch him again,” Deputy Zook reported. “Jennifer advised she touched his shoulder with her index finger to aggravate him… Jennifer stated she was not in fear of [the boyfriend] straggling [sic] her or hurting her by putting his hand on her neck. Jennifer advised [the boyfriend] put his hand on her neck to keep her away from him. Jennifer informed me she did have a gun at the time and is unsure where it’s located. She advised the gun has been missing for a while.”

McCarthy, who divorced Cormac McCarthy in 2006 after eight years of marriage, was “booked on Aggravated Assault on a Household member,” according to Zook’s report. She is the mother of the boy said to be the model for the child in McCarthy’s novel The Road.

The original dispute that led to the arrest? According to the arresting officer, the couple was arguing over … space aliens.