Read an excerpt from "Stella Maris"

We're on the eve of author Cormac McCarthy's double release.

Tomorrow, The Passenger will come out, but its companion novel, Stella Maris, is what NPR received a preview of (ahead of its December 6 release).

The Passenger is the story of Bobby Western, a salvage diver whose assignment to explore the wreckage of a sunken jet quickly escalates, internally and externally.

Stella Maris follows Bobby’s sister, Alicia, and is written solely as the transcript of dialogue between Alicia and her doctor at a psychiatric institution.

Read an excerpt from Stella Maris from NPR, which also spoke with McCarthy's agent about the long process of writing these novels ... and with a few lucky early readers of them.