Jennifer McCarthy (Picture: Santa Fe County Jail)

The ex-wife of a Pulitzer-winning author has been arrested on domestic violence charges after she reportedly pulled a gun out of her vagina and threatened her boyfriend while they were arguing about aliens.

The phrase ‘you couldn’t make it up’ springs to mind after 48-year-old Jennifer McCarthy – former spouse of Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the apocalyptic novel The Road – was accused of the aggravated assault.

According to a police report, the couple had an argument over space aliens in their Santa Fe home after which McCarthy left the abode.

She is then alleged to have returned, gone into the bedroom to dress herself in lingerie before performing a sex act on a silver handgun while asking: ‘Who is crazy, you or me?’


Cormac McCarthy also wrote No Country For Old Men (Picture: AP/Derek Shapton/courtesy of Knopf)

McCarthy then apparently pointed the gun at her boyfriend’s head, who snatched it away from her fearful that she would pull the trigger.



Officers arrived at roughly 10.50am Saturday morning, retrieving the weapon and arresting McCarthy over the alleged attack.

As reported by the Albuquerque Journal, McCarthy apparently accepts the couple had an argument but did not address the claims of her using the gun in the way her boyfriend described.

Jennifer and Cormac McCarthy, 80, married in 1998 but divorced in 2006. They have one son together.

Update: Mrs McCarthy has contacted Metro to say her case has since been dismissed