One of the best writers of all time, the great Cormac McCarthy passed away last night at the age of 89. Known for verbally painting a dystopian image of the American landscape, he saved almost all his words for the page, and granted virtually no interviews. A rare exception came when he gave his very first interview to Oprah in 2007.

The interview was a huge coup for Oprah, especially after literary snob Jonathan Franzen had publicly worried that her book club was too feminine, schmaltzy and middlebrow. So to have such a prestigious male writer accept the book club with pride, made Franzen look like a total poser. And even better, The Road, with its male leading characters and apocalyptic story bereft of hope and inspiration was a decidely off-brand pick for Oprah; the opposite of a stereotypical Oprah book, a way of telling the World, her club can not be pigeon-holed.

But getting the famously reclusive author to agree to an interview would be no easy task. Knowing his first impulse would be to say “no” Oprah instructed him to not answer right away. “I’ll call you back in 24 hours”. Oprah knew that in those 24 hours, other people would clue him in to what a huge opportunity it was and how crazy he’d be to turn her down. More specifically, there had been people like McCarthy’s publisher who had sacrificed for him for years and selling a lot of books on Oprah was a rare chance to pay the publisher back.

So when Oprah phoned back, McCarthy said yes. Far too shrewd to risk letting him change his mind, the second Oprah got the green light she flew to the research institute where McCarthy liked to hang around and filmed the interview right then and there.