Cormac McCarthy’s alleged ‘muse’ speaks to Vanity Fair

The previously unknown “muse” of famed novelist Cormac McCarthy has revealed herself in a Vanity Fair profile, published Wednesday.
Complete with excerpts from love letters and the first-hand testimony of a woman named Augusta Britt, the article alleges the two met when she was just 16 and the late author was 42. McCarthy died in 2023.
To escape foster homes that felt unsafe, Britt told Vanity Fair she used to frequent the pool at a motel called the Desert Inn in Tucson, Arizona. That’s where she claims to have met McCarthy, who she recognized from the photo on the back of the book she was reading (a copy of “The Orchard Keeper”, his debut novel.)
USA TODAY has reached out to McCarthy’s reps for comment.
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“He was so shocked,” Britt told the magazine. “He said he was surprised that anyone had read that book, let alone a 16-year-old girl.”
She was carrying a gun at the time of their meeting, she told the outlet, meant to protect her from years of beating at the hands of her father and foster parents. Her tough-as-nails, devil-may-care image is thought to have inspired both the Harrogate and Wanda characters in McCarthy’s “Suttree,” as well as others in at least 10 of his books, the article says.
“He wanted to hear more about my life,” she told the outlet. “It was the first time someone cared what I thought, asked me my opinions about things. And to have this adult man that actually seemed interested in talking to me, it was intensely soothing.”
As McCarthy lived the life of a vagabond writer, Britt would wait at the Dessert Inn for his calls, she told Vanity Fair. He sent her books, and when he came back into Tucson, he would leave cab or phone money between the third and fourth copies of the Wall Street Journal at a Denny’s, she told the outlet.
“It always had to be the fourth Wall Street Journal. He loved the intrigue of it. For all I know, he was laughing behind some mailbox watching me go in,” Britt told Vanity Fair.
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After she was beaten badly at home one night, she says McCarthy offered her an escape to Mexico.
They were helped by Michael Cameron, an old friend of McCarthy, the article says. “I helped them blow town,” Cameron told the reporter, adding that he fielded calls from Britt’s mother’s friends and the police. “That was a harrowing escape. I remember Cormac being very nervous, looking over his shoulder,” he said.
Of course, the age gap concerns remained, and as the pair took off to Mexico, Britt told Vanity Fair that McCarthy was wanted for statutory rape and the Mann Act. She maintains that the relationship was not inappropriate though, telling the magazine, “One thing I’m scared about is that he’s not around to defend himself. He saved my life.”
“I loved him. He was my safety,” Britt told Vanity Fair, “I really feel that if I had not met him, I would have died young. What I had trouble with came later. When he started writing about me.”
After Britt turned 18 and the pair returned from Mexico, things became rocky, she told Vanity Fair. That’s when she discovered McCarthy was married and had a child. “Cormac was my life, my pattern,” she told the outlet. “He was on a pedestal for me. And finding out he lied about those things, they became chinks in the trust.”
McCarthy was married three times and had two children.
The tether between Britt and McCarthy remained until his final days, she told Vanity Fair. But after he won the MacArthur grant in 1981 and she was able to return home to her family, she said the tightness frayed and never was quite repaired.
Seeing herself in his writing was difficult as well, Britt told Vanity Fair. Her characters were often killed off. “I thought he must not believe in me,” she told the outlet. “It’s taken me decades to realize that maybe what he was doing was killing off what had happened to me. Killing off the darkness.”
Vanity Fair journalist Vincenzo Barney, who wrote the report, said he learned of Britt’s story after he penned a review of “The Passenger” and published it on Substack, where she left a comment.
“Santa Fe killed the Cormac I knew. He gained fame, wealth, and fancy superficial friends,” she wrote. “These last many years he has taken up drinking again. Living in majestic splendor but enjoying none of it. Surrounded by junk and the clutter of a lifetime. Haunted.”
Then she reached out to find Barney and invited him to Tucson to share her story. The two spent hours pouring over letters, shooting and riding horses together over nine months as she revealed the blockbuster tale.
“I’ve been so afraid to tell my story,” Britt told Barney. “It feels like I’m being disloyal to Cormac. I’ve always wondered, too, who would believe me. I guess I’m just more private than him. But he would always warn me that at some point his archives would open up and people would find out about me.”