Some months ago, Jud Burgess, a book dealer who runs Brave Books in El Paso, made an amazing discovery. He found in a storage several boxes of books that had once been owned by Cormac McCarthy. The author of Blood Meridian, had lived in El Paso for nearly 25 years, in and out. Therefore, the Texas town promises to be a goldmine for collectors and book hunters. What follows is a story by one of them, Nate Cooley, a lawyer from Arizona who is on his way to becoming a top McCarthy collector. One can disagree with his conclusion about the McCarthy-related items he uncovered. Nevertheless, his story is a fascinating example of passion and expertise in book-hunting and collecting.

Here it is.

by Nathan Cooley

In mid-June 2024, I saw a listing on eBay for a first edition copy of Suttree. The listing was from a seller I didn’t recognize, and I could tell from the listing description that the seller wasn’t a sophisticated or experienced book dealer. I checked the seller’s other listings and also noticed a first edition copy of Blood Meridian that was listed simultaneously with the Suttree first edition.

In the description for Blood Meridian, the seller mentioned something about the there being a box with multiple copies of books, so I sent the seller a message through eBay: 

“Did you say you came across a box of these books at a swap meet in New Mexico? Was it all Blood Meridian books in the box or did the box include other books? How many Blood Meridian copies were in the box?”

The seller responded that he had “several copies of each”, so I immediately asked him, “Can I buy all of them together?”

The seller asked where I lived and told me he would consider it.  I then responded with the following to circumvent eBay’s filters:

“Nacho Apple Tango Echo Charlee Orange Orange Lego Echo Yellow at Charlee Orange Xerox dot Nacho Echo Tange – First letters”

This, of course, was my attempt to provide my email address. Understanding my code, the seller, whose name was Charlie, sent me an email and told me that he would need to confer with his friend because they bought the boxes of books together. He then asked me what I would offer for ten copies each of Blood Meridian and Suttree and I told him I’d need to see the books first. After more emails and text messages, we came to terms on a price for ten copies of each book. 

Since I was in the Phoenix area and Charlie was in El Paso, we initially discussed meeting halfway in Lordsburg, New Mexico.  However, still thinking my find was too good to be true and not leaving anything to chance — and because Charlie was elderly and not extremely mobile — I decided to go all the way to El Paso to see the books for myself and close the deal where the seller was located. I didn’t want to seem too eager, so I told Charlie that I had some other business in El Paso and that I would just meet him there. Truthfully though, I did have other business in El Paso because it was at this same time that I read the article in The McCarthyist about Jud Burgess’s acquisition of a portion of McCarthy’s personal book collection in El Paso. My “business” was wanting to go to El Paso to meet and talk to Jud, so I contacted Jud out of the blue and told him I’d be in El Paso and he was happy to meet me. I should note that finding out about Jud’s discovery at the same time I was trying to buy the Suttree and Blood Meridian “new old stock” — which is how Charlie described the books — I wondered if the books I was trying to buy came from the same place as Jud’s books. 

I got in my truck the afternoon of Tuesday, June 25^th and drove to El Paso. My wife thought I was crazy and seemed a little worried for my safety, but this is the Old West, and I had “Sig” and “Sauer” as a companion to protect me.

On Wednesday, June 26^th, I first met with Jud Burgess at his shop Brave Books in the West Central neighborhood of El Paso. Jud spent over an hour with me and showed me some of the books from McCarthy’s personal collection. What’s most important and interesting are the notes McCarthy wrote in the margins of some of the books and notes on pieces of paper that were found laid in some of the books.

After visiting with Jud, I met with Charlie in a bank parking lot on the west side of El Paso. Charlie was a very pleasant and genuinely nice man. Charlie had with him the books, but he had more than the ten copies each we discussed. He actually had with him thirteen copies each of Suttree and Blood Meridian, and six copies of All the Pretty Horses. I told Charlie I wanted all of the books, and right then and there we renegotiated the deal for a higher price, which I was happy to do. 

Charlie sat in my truck as I reviewed the books and checked their condition. I paid him and we sat and talked for a bit longer as I tried to gather additional information.  During our conversation, Charlie told me that another person in El Paso may have additional McCarthy books from the same stash or may know where or who has additional books. He didn’t know who the person was but said the other person may be someone who does estate sales. 

Charlie and I parted ways, and while still sitting in my truck in the bank parking lot, I immediately started researching people in El Paso who do estate sales. I found a few names and started making calls and sending text messages. 

One person in particular who I contacted and who does estate sales responded: “Hi who is this? How did you get my number? Sorry was super busy with an estate sale.” I responded and told him I may have had the wrong number, but he then responded saying “So you don’t collect McCarthy items?”. I knew then that I had the right person and I responded: “I do!!  What can you tell me?”  He said he couldn’t talk because he was in the middle of an estate sale. Unfortunately though, I could not remain in El Paso and needed to get back home. 

While I was driving on the Interstate 10 back toward Arizona about halfway between Las Cruces and Demming, New Mexico, the person who does estate sales, Eddie, called me. Eddie told me he was representing a seller who had additional McCarthy books to sell as well as clothing items and other McCarthy ephemera. We exchanged numerous texts about the books and other items and discussed pricing.  Eddie’s initial asking price for the books and other items was almost full market price, so I basically wrote off making a deal thinking the seller would not come down enough to a price that made sense for me. 

I got home and went about my business, but the day after returning from El Paso, Eddie sent me a photo of the books. I told him I was interested and would close the deal immediately if we could agree on a price. Finally, on July 29^th, Eddie sent me a detailed list of the books and items included in the lot. I told Eddie that I was only really interested in the copies of Suttree and Blood Meridian and not All the pretty Horses or the clothing and other items.     

Finally, we came to terms on a price but agreed that I would only buy half the books at that time, then the rest of the books in early August. So, on the afternoon of Sunday, July 14^th, I again drove to El Paso, this time taking my 10-year-old daughter as my travel companion and muscle…

I met with Eddie again in a bank parking lot. I reviewed the books and finalized the purchase of fifteen more copies each of Suttree and Blood Meridian, and then drove home to Arizona. 

Still wanting to acquire the rest of the books through Eddie, we exchanged additional text messages over the next month. Eddie sent me additional photos of the clothing items and the ephemera, which only included a book store cardboard promotional display for All the Pretty Horses and two airline receipts with Cormac’s name on them for April 26, 1995 flights from El Paso to L.A. to Santa Barbara. 

During this time, Eddie also informed me that his seller actually only had for sale four more copies each of Suttree and Blood Meridian and twenty copies of All the Pretty Horses.  I told him that this was far fewer than the twenty-nine copies each of Suttree and Blood Meridian that he originally told me he had. He assured me that he didn’t sell any of the books out from under me, and said that his seller had miscounted.  He said that the seller had originally included all copies of Suttree, Blood Meridian, and All the Pretty Horses in his count and mistakenly thought half were Suttree and half were Blood Meridian.  Because there were fewer books than I expected still remaining, we renegotiated the deal but I also agreed to buy the clothing and ephemera, and I again drove to El Paso on Wednesday, August 21^st.

I should note that because Eddie wasn’t the actual owner or seller of the books, I wanted to know who had the books and other items and who was the actual seller.  Eddie always told me that his client, the seller, wanted to maintain his privacy and despite me repeatedly asking, Eddie would never tell me who the seller was.  However, in one of the screenshots of the McCarthy clothing items that Eddie sent to me, Eddie failed to crop the photo so that at the top of the screenshot was the name of the person that I figured was the actual seller of the items, or at least the person in possession of the items. 

Before I met with Eddie on the morning of Thursday, August 22^nd, I did more research and discovered that the person’s name in the screen shot — “Carlos” — was associated with a commercial address in downtown El Paso.  I looked up that address and it was for a business that was owned by Carlos. I also searched the property ownership records and discovered that the building at that address was owned by a limited partnership in Carlos’s family name, and that Carlos appeared to own a number of businesses in the El Paso area.

On the morning of Thursday, August 22^nd, I exchanged text messages with Eddie to coordinate meeting time and location.  Eddie told me that he had to pick up the books and items from the seller before we could meet. 

Because the downtown address associated with Carlos was near the hotel where I was staying, I drove to the address that morning and drove around the area.  I parked my truck across the street from that address and just waited, and sure enough, after waiting for about 15 minutes, Eddie arrived at the address. I then watched Eddie take boxes from the building at the address and load the boxes into his vehicle.  Eddie had no idea I was watching him, but again, I wanted to know who was the actual seller of the books and this verified for me that Carlos was most likely the seller who wanted to remain anonymous.

After Eddie loaded the boxes, I texted him to ask where to meet and we agreed on a location in downtown El Paso. We then met and finalized the last deal for the four remaining copies each of Suttree and Blood Meridian, the twenty copies of All the Pretty Horses, and the clothing and ephemera items. 

After that meeting, I visited with Jud Burgess again at his shop, and I gave Jud one of the copies of All the Pretty Horses.  I also visited Bill Clark who owns Literarity Book Shop in the Mesa Hills neighborhood of El Paso and who I had met on the previous trip in July. I also gave Bill a copy of All the Pretty Horses and I then drove home to Arizona. 

When the books and clothing items were offered to me, the asking price for the clothing was much more than I wanted to pay, and using as a comparable sale McCarthy’s air force uniform shirt Bonhams sold last April, I determined that the seller’s asking price for the clothes was substantially more than I thought they were worth.  Because there ended up being fewer copies of Blood Meridian and Suttree than I expected, I negotiated with the seller in the moment and ended up acquiring the clothing items with the books. The most interesting clothing item I had purchased. was a Levi’s denim jacket. This, of course, was because of the photo on the back of the Suttree dust jacket in which McCarthy is wearing a denim jacket.  Because it had been 45 years since Suttree was published though, I considered it an extreme long shot that the denim jacket in the clothing lot was the actual denim jacket McCarthy was wearing in the Suttree photo. 

After buying the items and returning to Arizona, I set aside the box of clothing and didn’t pay much attention to them for about six weeks. In the back of my mind though, I still wondered about the denim jacket and considered what, if anything, I could do to determine when the jacket was made. Finally, I dug in and researched the jacket and quickly learned that the jacket was a Levi’s Type 3 Trucker Jacket and that it was made in the early to mid-1970s. This discovery was very exciting to me, and I started to wonder if the jacket was the actual jacket McCarthy is wearing in the Suttree photo. 

Whereas I originally thought there was no way it could be the same jacket because of the 45-year time span, I considered that the jacket and other clothing items were found in storage in El Paso, which meant that the items had most likely been in storage for about 30 years when McCarthy moved from El Paso to Santa Fe. This meant that the jacket should more appropriately be viewed as 20 years old rather than 45 years old.  It’s possible too that McCarthy’s jacket and other items were placed in storage as early as 1979 as indicated in a McCarthy letter to “Jerry” (probably Reverend Gerald A. Krum) circa 1979 (“I have a pretty good sized collection of books on Texas and the Southwest but they are in storage in El Paso”). I remembered too that McCarthy was known for living a spartan and minimalist lifestyle, meaning that McCarthy was the type of guy who if he found a jacket he liked, he probably held on to it for decades rather than buy a new one. 

The jacket’s characteristics indicating that it’s a Type 3 Trucker Jacket made in the early to mid-1970s are the following:

(1) no hand warmer or side pockets;

(2) only the ”L” is capitalized and the “e” is lowercase on the red tab on the left breast;

(3) two breast pockets with pointed pocket flaps;

(4) narrow vertical stitching in the shape of “V” down the front on both sides;

(5) no care tag;

(6) lot number on the label is “71205 0217”;

(7) nine total buttons with “LEVI STRAUSS & CO • SF CAL •” written in a circle around the perimeter of each button, with the back of each button stamped “525”.

That I know the jacket was made in the early to mid-1970s, the next step I undertook was to do a visual comparison of the jacket and its wear pattern and other unique characteristics and marks with the jacket in the Suttree photo. Based on this visual comparison, I am fairly confident the jacket in my possession is the same jacket McCarthy is wearing in the photo on the Suttree dust jacket. More analysis is needed though, and the research continues. 

READ MORE: ARE THESE ACQUISITIONS LEGITIMATE? BOOK-HUNTING IN EL PASO: A DISCUSSION WITH PETER JOSYPH