Stella Maris

Published in 2022, Stella Maris stands as Cormac McCarthy’s final novel, marking the conclusion of the American novelist’s prolific career. Serving as a companion or, more precisely, an afterword to his notably lengthier novel The Passenger, released in the same year, both works emerged following a 15-year hiatus in McCarthy’s publishing trajectory. The narrative centers around Alicia, a hyperintelligent math genius who voluntarily admits herself to the psychiatric hospital Stella Maris. Engaging in profound metaphysical, mathematical, and philosophical discussions with her psychotherapist, Alicia explores topics such as the meaning of life, her mental apparitions, the existence of an afterlife, and various unconventional subjects. The novel defies easy categorization, resembling a play in the back-and-forth dialogue exchanges but structured in prose fashion.

All quotations and page numbers are referenced from the 2022 Picador edition of Stella Maris.

Content Warning: This book contains graphic depictions of mental illness, death by suicide, suicidal ideation, and incestuous relationships, and it hints at antigay bias and instances of antisemitism.

Plot Summary

The novel commences with the initiation of a series of profound and unconventional therapy sessions between Dr. Michael Cohen and Alicia Western at the psychiatric hospital, Stella Maris. Alicia, grappling with the aftermath of her brother’s tragic racing accident, which left him in a coma and herself burdened with the decision to disconnect life support, sought refuge in Stella Maris. Dr. Cohen endeavors to comprehend Alicia’s complex situation by delving into her life, beliefs, and worldview. Of particular focus is Alicia’s expertise in topos theory as a doctoral candidate in mathematics, where she collaborated with luminaries like Alexander Grothendieck, a pioneer in modern algebraic geometry.

Despite her early achievements in a predominantly male field and graduating from the University of Chicago at age 16, Alicia confesses her disillusionment with mathematics. Instead, she harbors a yearning for a more traditional role as a wife and mother. The conversation takes a poignant turn as Alicia shares her hallucinations of enigmatic beings that both console and torment her. To Alicia, these beings possess a tangible form within her mind: Though she realizes that they exist only in her mind, they are as real from her perspective as anything in the external world. Alicia’s encounters with these apparitions began after her mother’s death, coinciding with her relocation to her grandmother’s attic. Among these beings is “the Kid,” a dwarf with flippers for hands. Alicia contends that these apparitions strive to give shape and expression to something formless, subtly acknowledging their symbolic representation of deeper aspects of her personality.

In the second chapter, the dialogue commences with Alicia delving into her father’s background as a scientist on the Manhattan Project, collaborating with Robert Oppenheimer, the father of the atomic bomb. Alicia’s upbringing took place in Los Alamos, the testing facility for the first atomic bombs that were subsequently dropped on Japanese cities. Before her immersion in mathematics, Alicia reveals her earlier passion for music, particularly as a violinist, viewing it as an art form that transcends the randomness in the universe. Alicia’s admires music for its remarkable ability to evoke human emotions through the arrangement of notes and in the absence of language. This exploration of music segues into the book that profoundly influenced Alicia’s thinking: George Berkeley’s “A New Theory of Vision.” Berkeley argued that the visual world’s truth is contingent upon individual perceptions within the human mind. Alicia illustrates this concept by describing the precreation world as a void until the first entity with vision imparted meaning to it.

The conversation pivots once more to Alicia’s hallucinations, specifically focusing on the Thalidomide Kid, so-called because he has flipper-like appendages instead of hands or arms, an appearance that—to Alicia—resembles the effects of the drug Thalidomide when taken during gestation. Alicia then embarks on an exposition of quantum mechanics. She argues that all scientific experiments necessitate our direct involvement to be validated as true; beyond human consciousness, their existence or nonexistence cannot be asserted. Returning to the Thalidomide Kid, Alicia discloses that, before his recent visit, he shared a poem with her, withholding it from the doctor. She asserts that others can also perceive him. This revelation prompts a brief hiatus in the therapy session as Alicia becomes overwhelmed.

Upon her arrival at Stella Maris, Alicia carried over $40,000 in cash—all that remained of a half-million-dollar inheritance from her paternal grandmother. Most of this original sum had been devoted to the purchase of an Amati, an ancient Italian violin. The inheritance, consisting of $20 gold pieces, had been buried in her grandmother’s basement. Alicia used these funds to acquire the violin from Christie’s auction house. However, upon receiving the Amati, she is overcome with uncontrollable tears. Her emotional outpouring stems from a profound despair at the paradox of mankind’s capacity to create something as beautiful as the Amati while concurrently inflicting terrible cruelty and inhumanity upon the world.

Chapter 3 opens with Alicia reflecting on her father’s death, which occurred four years after her mother’s passing. Despite her father’s involvement in the Manhattan Project, he harbored no guilt about its creation. In a peculiar twist, he believed that without the atomic bomb, Japan would not have undergone the period of modernization and reconstruction that followed its defeat. Alicia recounts how her father missed her mother’s funeral to attend a lecture by Kurt Gödel at Brown University. Gödel, a staunch advocate of mathematical Platonism, asserted that mathematical entities exist independently of the human mind—a viewpoint Alicia finds contradictory, as she believes human consciousness plays a pivotal role in creating mathematics. This perspective led her to view the subject as a faith-based initiative, diverting her from its study. Despite her reservations, Alicia maintains a belief in the objective nature of true intelligence rooted in numbers, contending that verbal intelligence is limited and only numbers can address profound questions. However, she acknowledges that this numerical intelligence is also the source of malevolence, with all evil men being smart.

The conversation transitions to Alicia’s family history, as they resided in Oak Ridge for years before the construction of the Manhattan Project shifted to Los Alamos. Her mother worked there, checking dials on uranium, and it was there that she met Alicia’s father. Alicia recounts her mother’s struggles, including a mental breakdown that led to hospitalizations. She shares a haunting dream of her mother being carried through a crowd of people, lifeless, leading to another distressing dream of a village of women being mercilessly massacred by an attacking army, their culture and traditions obliterated in moments. The narrative shifts to Alicia’s early experiences with therapists, dating back to age four, reinforcing her sense of being different. The chapter concludes on a poignant note, recounting a beautiful memory of Alicia and her brother walking on a beach at night.

In Chapter 4, Alicia delves into another of her hallucinations featuring Miss Vivian, an older and eccentric woman perpetually in tears. Alicia reveals that Miss Vivian’s constant crying stems from her empathy for suffering babies. Alicia vividly describes how she becomes hypersensitive to the sounds of crying children, expressing a sense of rage against a world they were brought into without their consent.

The conversation then shifts back to mathematics, with Alicia characterizing it as mere “sweat and toil” (98) that yields answers but begets endless questions and decisions. In contrast, she describes music as self-contained, complete, and unifying. The dialogue transitions to a peculiar childhood dream of Alicia’s involving a Judas hole—a portal through which she sees sentinels standing at a gate guarding something terrible with power over her.

Alicia reminisces about her high school days, recalling a romanticized infatuation with a senior basketball player and her sexual awakening when he wrote a letter on her back. The discussion takes a somber turn as Alicia reflects on her father’s involvement in testing the first atomic bomb, depicting the explosion in dramatic detail, and emphasizing its transformative impact on the world. It is revealed that her father sought cancer therapy in Mexico after exhausting all other options, ultimately succumbing to the illness. Following his death, Alicia’s brother Bobby unsuccessfully searched for their father in Mexico. Alicia shares an emotional moment when Bobby dreamt that their father asked him where he was, leading to uncontrollable tears. The conversation lightens toward the end as Alicia mentions her ability to read clocks backward in mirrors and whimsically describes a fictional scenario depicting the creation of the first violin.

In Chapter 5, Alicia astounds the doctor with her extensive reading habits, having consumed two books a day for over 10 years, totaling an impressive 7,300. Notably, she retains vivid memories of everything she reads. The conversation shifts to the Kid, who engages in nonsensical dialogue, random references, observations, and performances. Alicia shares her perspective on the unconscious, defining it as a purely biological system—an intricate machine communicating through metaphors and symbols. She delves into the concept of the self, portraying it not as a singular entity but as a collection of identities.

The narrative then returns to Alicia’s childhood, recalling when her brother gifted her a car, and she would drive to the mountains, contemplating algebraic topology. She recounts receiving a fellowship at IHES (Institut des hautes études scientifiques) in France. The discussion moves to her aspirations of escaping to Romania, her family’s place of origin, and takes a grim turn as she delves into a morbid and forensic analysis of what it would be like to drown oneself in Lake Tahoe, describing the excruciating pain and torment. This discussion leads to Alicia’s broader perspective on the world, which she believes conceals a demonic energy that manifests in the destructive events of the century. This realization prompts her to destroy her doctoral thesis.

In Chapter 6, Alicia’s teenage years blur into a kaleidoscope of motel rooms and dusty highways, the Kid her sole companion as they chase elusive gigs and fleeting fame. But amidst the greasepaint and applause, a forbidden love blossoms with her brother Bobby, defying societal norms and igniting a firestorm of desire. Alicia dreams of forever with him, yearning for a marriage and a love that mirrors the heat of her graphic dreams. Yet Bobby, torn between passion and societal constraints, retreats, leaving Alicia heartbroken and grappling with the complexities of a love deemed unthinkable. This secret symphony of yearning and rejection leaves Alicia at a crossroads, her heart a battlefield between societal expectations and a love that burns with an unwavering intensity.

In Chapter 7, Alicia reflects on the departure of the Kid, whom she acknowledges will be greatly missed. Gradually, she comprehends that the Kid played a role in keeping something ominous at bay—an unsettling revelation that hints at her own impending death by suicide. The conversation pivots to Alicia’s contemplation of language, which she characterizes as a parasitic system that, when it first developed in early humans, likely resulted in the loss of many other mental abilities.

Alicia revisits the topic of Gödel, who asserts that in a future devoid of humans and their propensity for interpretation, the fundamental truths of the world will briefly illuminate before fading into eternal oblivion. She challenges Gödel’s perspective, contending that his belief in the existence of mathematical concepts beyond the human mind borders on a quasireligious theism. Further, Alicia argues that mathematics, being boundless and inexhaustible, renders her pursuit of it futile, as it lacks a definitive conclusion.

The book concludes with Alicia articulating her ideal scenario for suicide—offering herself to wild beasts, which tear her apart, leading to a state of nonexistence wherein nobody remembers her. She briefly holds the doctor’s hand, a gesture implying that her demise is imminent and that there’s no preventing this tragic outcome.