The Stonemason

The Stonemason is a play in five acts by American writer Cormac McCarthy, written in the late 1980s and first performed in 1995.

It concerns a Southern black family based on one McCarthy spent many months working with.

This play focuses on the tribulations of the Telfair family over a three-year period.

The story is told by monologues of the character Ben Telfair, a thirty-two-year-old third-generation stonemason.

Two acts are taken up to provide back-story which involves Ben's choice not to continue college and to take up the family business of stonemasonry.