Cormac McCarthy Gets New (Old) Typewriter

Cormac McCarthy has typed his last on the ancient Olivetti on which he's pounded out more than 5 million words since 1963, and the battered machine is now up for auction. The author of No Country for Old Men and The Road picked up the typewriter at a pawn shop for $50 and maintained it only by “blowing out the dust with a service station hose”; Christie’s expects it to sell for $15,000 to $20,000.

But if you think for a minute McCarthy is finally upgrading to a Mac or a netbook, Wired reports, think again. The famously truculent novelist will carry on by means of another Olivetti, bought by a McCarthy pal for…$11. Proceeds of the auction, says the New York Times, will go to to the Santa Fe Institute, an interdisciplinary scientific research outfit. (More Cormac McCarthy stories.)