Here’s How Twitter Reacted to Cormac McCarthy’s Death Hoax

Cormac McCarthy Is Dead. Long Live Cormac McCarthy

Yesterday, a fake Twitter account designed to look like Knopf (@aknopfnews) announced that Cormac McCarthy had died at age 81 from a stroke. USA Today quickly picked up on the news and retweeted it, leading to a frenzy of concern that the author of novels like The Road and No Country For Old Men had passed away.

It was soon revealed that the news was a hoax by Italian journalist Tommasso Debenedetti. Debenedetti has created fake accounts for authors in the past (DeLillo, Marquez, Munro) but Twitter seemed to enjoy the idea that McCarthy, he of guns, blood, and apocalypse, had survived death (or maybe as McCarthy would put it, survived being buried alive.)

Cormac McCarthy is alive and well and still doesn't care about Twitter.

 — @penguinrandom

Cormac McCarthy isn't dead, but his work will continue to make you feel dead inside

 — @fivefifths

My new band is called Cormac McCarthy Is Dead. We have one drummer & three guys who play the gun.

 — @kashanacauley

Cormac McCarthy is alive and well and thinking of ways to describe the sunset that make it sound like it murdered a troubled man.

 — @mhbertino

I expect Cormac McCarthy to bury us all. I mean that literally.

 — @ditzkoff

Or perhaps Debenedetti is the hoax, and something else is going on…

joyce carol oates reported the fake death of cormac mccarthy so quickly you have to wonder what's going on under the surface there

 — @rachsyme