Yes, I think the father would say the same of himself were he to die. It’s not just the mother committing suicide–lots of people in McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic world do. It’s like an alternative, albeit a misguided one, to becoming as twisted as the Reaver-people. I think, in this context, the “whorish heart” just refers to being unable to confront the darkness within the human soul. It’s easier to seek oblivion. “Whorish,” specifically, because the mother refers to taking on Death as a new lover.

I think the line particularly stands out to me because it’s both an echo and a rejection (character-wise) of Auden’s lines, “You shall love your crooked neighbor / With all your crooked heart.” It’s like the mother can’t admit the admixture of crookedness and love in human life.

That said, in the Oprah interview, McCarthy admits to not being able to write women characters very well. It occurred to me that maybe it was easier to get rid of the mother character than to write her!

There is a positive female character at the end of the novel.

Is McCarthy deliberately playing with Kerouac here? Or, more properly, is he playing with the American mythos of men and the road by having his two characters be male? The mother’s suicidal line is profoundly disturbing–why is she “whorish”? Would the father say the same of himself were he to die?

Could this story be told with women?

I haven’t read it. I’m just thinking out loud.