In October 1957, the Knoxville News‑Sentinel reported that C. J. McCarthy Jr. had accidentally shot himself during target practice. The incident was described differently in local papers: one said he underwent leg surgery, another that a .22‑caliber rifle discharged when the trigger caught on its holster. His mother, Gladys, claimed he was not carrying a rifle at the time.
After discharge from the Air Force, McCarthy hitchhiked across the country before returning to Tennessee in the fall of 1957. The GI Bill enabled him to re‑enroll at the University of Tennessee, where he sought a career that would not require immediate employment.
McCarthy’s course selection was eclectic. He signed up for physics and engineering, but also took Expository Writing: Modern Essays and Composition and Writing of Fiction taught by Robert Woodham Daniel. Daniel, who sat on the advisory board of the student literary publication the Phoenix, emphasized pragmatic writing over literary theory.
During this period, McCarthy’s exposure to Southern literary traditions—particularly the Southern Agrarians—shaped his thinking. The Agrarians, including Allen Tate, John Crowe Ransom and Robert Penn Warren, promoted literature that reflected “the common ground of man” and critiqued modern industrialism. Their ideas influenced the New Criticism movement, which focused on a text’s formal properties.
Professor Daniel hired McCarthy to re‑punctuate essays for a textbook, The Written Word: Forms of Writing, slated for publication in 1960. McCarthy removed excessive commas from 18th‑century essays, including a version of Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” reducing the number of punctuation marks by 21 percent compared to the original 1729 pamphlet.