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Last week was a somber one in the world of letters. June 13 saw the death of the great novelist Cormac McCarthy, author of “All the Pretty Horses,” “No Country for Old Men” and “The Road,” among many other acclaimed books. Then, June 14 saw the death of the great editor Bob Gottlieb, who worked with writers from Toni Morrison to Joseph Heller to John le Carré — and, maybe most famously, with Robert Caro, the author of “The Power Broker” and a multivolume biography of Lyndon B. Johnson that remains to be finished.

On this week’s episode of the podcast, Gilbert Cruz talks with Dwight Garner about McCarthy’s work, and with Pamela Paul and Emily Eakin about Gottlieb’s life and legacy.

“The two never worked together,” Cruz notes, “but it’s fascinating to imagine Gottlieb — who has argued with historian Robert Caro for half a century over punctuation marks — editing McCarthy, who rejected the use of quotation marks, semicolons and other such frippery. … I don’t know, maybe the two would have gotten along just fine.”

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