Around the Year in 52 Books discussion

#28 A biography, autobiography or memoir

I read this book in anticipation of reading the Complete Stories (1972) which won the National Book Award that year.

Flannery O'Connor (1925-1964) was a Southern Writer and lifelong devout Roman Catholic, both of which characteristics were food for her body of work - two novels and many short stories.

O'Connor had many supporters and detractors. Despite the misunderstood subject matter of her stories, often containing violence and cruelty, she remained true to her faith and morality, saying in one of her many presentations on writing "If the writer is as an artist, his moral judgment will coincide with his dramatic judgment. It will be inseparable from the very act of seeing." For Flannery morality meant conveying a vision. She spent hours editing her stories in order to convey that vision.

She was a contemporary of many southern writers, including William Faulkner, Carson McCullers and Katherine Porter, all of whom knew her and held her in high regard.

Diagnosed with lupus in 1951, she carried on most of her literary career with deteriorating health. Her life was cut short in 1964 at age 39. Some accolades at her death, regarding her writing, attest to the impact she made in that short life:

Thomas Merton: I write her name with all honor, for all the truth and all the craft with which she shows man's fall and his dishonor.

Robert Giroux, her publisher, spoke of her "clear vision" that "not only burns brighter than ever but it burns through the masks of what she called 'blind walls and low dodges of the heart' "

When asked why she wrote about freaks, she replied, displaying her considerable wit, "...because we are still able to recognize one."

Many articles and books have been written about her and her work. This is but one. It tells of her career, but also gives glimpses of her personal life: her immediate family and extended relations, her school days, and her love of birds, especially peacocks which she kept on her farm. A good overview and introduction to to an iconic writer.