by Brad Gooch
159 “Yaddo is a sort of”: Robert Lowell to Ezra Pound, [n.d., fall 1948], Letters, 114.
159 “pleasant”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, December 18, 1948, Letters, 120.
159 “an introverted and extroverted”: Ibid., October 1, 1948, Letters, 111.
159 “the friend of Moscow”: Malcolm Cowley, A Century at Yaddo (Saratoga Springs, N.Y.: Corporation of Yaddo, 2000), 18.
159 “acute and silent”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, [n.d., fall 1948], Letters, 699.
159 “There’s a girl”: Robert Lowell to Caroline Gordon, [n.d. November 1948], Letters, 116.
160 “She fell for him”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Flannery O’Connor: Patterns of Friendship, Patterns of Love,” Georgia Review 52, no. 3 (Fall 1998): 415.
160 “I lost her”: Ibid.
160 “She wasn’t in love”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, Novem-ber 13, 2003.
160 “I feel almost too much”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 21, 1956, CW, 992.
160 “I think one of the best”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, January 14, 1949, Letters, 704.
160 “I watched him that winter”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 21, 1956, CW, 992.
160 “Christ-haunted”: FOC, “The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South,” CW, 861; in Wise Blood, O’Connor writes, of Haze, “Later he saw Jesus move from tree to tree in the back of his mind, a wild ragged figure motioning him to turn around and come off into the dark,” CW, 11.
160 “Cal Lowell says”: Caroline Gordon to Brainard Cheney, February 4, 1953, Frances and Brainard Cheney Collection, Jean and Alexander Heard Library, Vanderbilt University, Nashville.
160 “It seems such a short time”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, August 10, 1964, Letters, 452–53.
161 “She’s run through the local”: Robert Lowell to Robie Macauley, [n.d., fall 1948], Letters, 699–700.
161 “I read it about ten”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 24, 1957, HB, 237.
162 “habit of the practical”: Maritain, Art and Scholasticism, 9.
162 “The pure artist”: Ibid., 13.
162 “you don’t have to be good”: FOC to Betty Hester, September 15, 1955, CW, 955.
162 “Guggenheiming it”: Wright, “Diary,” November 19, 1948.
162 “enGuggenheimed”: Ibid., December 27, 1948.
162 “sentence by sentence”: Robert Lowell, Recommendation for Flannery O’Connor, Fiction Category, [n.d., fall 1948], Archive of the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation.
163 “I introduced him to”: Robert Lowell to T. S. Eliot, January 18, 1949, Letters, 130.
163 “It was not gin”: FOC to Robert Lowell, December 28, 1958, CW, 1086.
163 “high moral tone”: Wright, “Diary,” December 5, 1948.
163 “ingeniously funny”: Ibid., December 27, 1948.
163 “perfect”: Ibid., December 21, 1948.
163 “grotesque”: Ibid., January 27, 1949.
163 “My suggestion”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, December 8, 1948, Letters, 120.
163 “aloud to the two”: Ibid., December 24, 1948, Letters, 122.
163 “It would be nice”: Jean Wylder, “Flannery O’Connor, A Reminiscence and Some Letters,” North American Review 225, no. 1 (Spring 1970): 62.
164 “please show”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, January 20, 1949, HB, 8.
164 “a pretty straight”: John Selby to FOC, February 16, 1949, GCSU.
164 “He too thought”: FOC to Paul Engle, April 7, 1949, CW, 882.
164 “Send me, please”: Paul Engle to FOC, May 16, 1949, GCSU.
164 “Please tell me”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, February 17, 1949, CW, 880.
164 “kind of aloneness”: John Selby to FOC, February 16, 1949, GCSU.
164 “I am not writing”: FOC to John Selby, February 18, 1949, CW, 881.
164 “the hardening of the arteries”: John Selby to Paul Engle, May 9, 1949, GCSU.
165 “seemed to be attending”: Kazin, New York Jew, 314.
165 “dimpled agreeable”: Wright, “Diary,” December 5, 1948.
165 “Lizzie Hardwick”: Ibid., January 27, 1949.
165 “Lowell and Elizabeth Hardwick”: Kazin, New York Jew, 313.
165 “Most of all”: Elizabeth Hardwick, “Flannery O’Connor, 1925–1964,” New York Review of Books (October 8, 1964): 21.
165 “She was a plain”: Elizabeth Hardwick, in discussion with the author, Octo-ber 31, 2003.
166 “pious”: Robert Lowell to Peter Taylor, October 22, 1948, Letters, 113.
166 “It was a gloomy”: Kazin, New York Jew, 312.
166 “the agrarian–little magazine”: Wright, “Diary,” January 27, 1949.
167 Agnes Smedley: Her most recent biographer, Ruth Price, discovered, to her dismay, through recently released papers in Soviet archives that Smedley was indeed “as cunning and crafty an operator as her detractors on the right ever alleged.” “Introduction,” The Lives of Agnes Smedley (Oxford, New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 9.
167 “She idolized”: Jim Shannon, in discussion with the author, May 25, 2005.
167 “fantastic idea”: Wright, “Diary,” February 14, 1949.
167 “I had refused”: James Ross to Elizabeth Ames, July 16, 1949, “James Ross Guest File,” Yaddo.
168 “I shall compare”: Robert Lowell, “Minutes of Special Meeting of the Directors of the Corporation of Yaddo,” February 26, 1949, 15, Yaddo.
168 “Molotov cocktails”: Elizabeth Hardwick, “Minutes,” 28.
168 “They frequently came”: Elizabeth Ames, “Minutes,” 57.
168 “some of the excitement”: Edward Stonequist, “Minutes,” 5.
168 “very pleasant”: FOC, “Minutes,” 31.
169 “It wasn’t as much”: Elizabeth Hardwick, in discussion with the author, October 31, 2003.
169 “When I look at my birds”: FOC to Elizabeth Ames, February 9, 1958, Yaddo.
169 “The guests departed”: Malcolm Cowley to Louis Kronenberger, March 8, 1949, “Malcolm Cowley Papers,” Newberry Library; quoted in Ian Hamilton, Robert Lowell (New York: Random House, 1982), 148.
169 “We have been very upset”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, February 24, 1949, HB, 11.
169 “There’s too many people”: FOC, “The Peeler,” The Complete Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971), 69.
170 “There is one advantage”: FOC to Betty Boyd, November 5, 1949, HB, 19.
170 “very nice girl”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 21, 1956, HB, 152.
170 “I think Elizabeth is a lot”: Ibid., January 12, 1957, HB, 196.
170 “But mine was upper”: Elizabeth Hardwick, in discussion with the author, October 31, 2003.
170 “an unopened Bible”: FOC to Jean Wylder, March 1949, quoted in Cash, Flannery O’Connor: A Life (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 123.
170 “very good co-op cafeteria”: FOC to Betty Hester, September 8, 1962, HB, 491.
171 “to become an intellectual”: Ibid., June 1, 1956, 161.
171 “shooting sparks”: Ian Hamilton, Robert Lowell (New York: Random House, 1982), 149.
171 “She did this with some difficulty”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises Must Converge (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965), xii.
172 “how this affable”: Beth Dawkins Bassett, “Converging Lives,” Emory Magazine 50, no. 4 (April 1982): 18.
172 “shapes black-spinning”: FOC, “The Train,” Complete Stories, 56.
172 “Mrs. Fitzgerald is 5 feet 2”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 1, 1956, HB, 161.
172 “unusual”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, November 13, 2003.
173 “my good editor”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 16, 1959, CW, 1096.
173 “received the shock”: Ian Hamilton, Lowell, 149–50.
174 “Let me right now correct”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 14, 1960, HB, 395.
174 “a Big Intellectual”: FOC to Betty Hes
ter, December 16, 1955, CW, 976.
174 “It did become famous”: Elizabeth Hardwick, in discussion with the author, October 31, 2003.
175 “a frame of mind”: “Petition in support of Elizabeth Ames,” March 21, 1949, Newberry Library, Chicago. Quoted in Ian Hamilton, Lowell, 151.
175 “a poet and a Roman Catholic”: “Panel Discussions of the Cultural Conference Delegates Cover a Wide Range of Subjects,” New York Times, March 27, 1949.
175 “But you are a woman”: Ian Hamilton, Lowell, 156.
175 “to take with her”: Giroux, “Introduction,” Complete Stories, ix.
175 “I didn’t get any”: FOC to Paul Engle, April 7, 1949, CW, 883.
176 “blew our lids”: Robert Lowell to Anthony Ostroff, August 23, 1957, Letters, 291.
176 “Why didn’t you teach”: Helen Greene, “Mary Flannery O’Connor: One Teacher’s Happy Memory,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 19 (1990): 46.
176 “On one side we see communism”: James Carroll, “What We Can Learn from Our Reaction to Billy Graham’s Crusades,” Boston Globe, June 28, 2005.
176 “Our action”: FOC to Betty Boyd, June 8, 1949, GCSU.
176 “much worse than Georgia”: FOC to Janet McKane, July 7, 1963, HB, 530.
177 “I liked riding”: Ibid., June 5, 1963, HB, 522.
177 “All the women”: FOC to Betty Boyd, June 22, 1949, GCSU.
177 “uptown”: FOC to Janet McKane, July 20, 1963, HB, 530.
177 “I didn’t see much”: FOC to Janet McKane, June 19, 1963, CW, 1188.
177 “not overly talkative”: Virginia Wray, “Flannery O’Connor on the West Side: Dr. Lyman Fulton’s Recollections of a Short Acquaintance,” English Language Notes 39, no. 1 (September 2001): 73.
177 “goat’s milk cheese”: FOC to Mary Virginia Harrison [Mrs. John A. Mills], March 12, 1950, GCSU.
178 “I do remember”: Wray, “Flannery O’Conor on the West Side,” 75.
178 “An Easter Attraction”: New York Times, April 17, 1949.
178 “a pipe smoker”: “Vows of the Peacock,” The New Yorker (July 16, 1949): 12.
178 “laughing”: FOC to Janet McKane, June 5, 1963, HB, 523; the most likely candidate for the statue is an early fourteenth-century, forty-eight-inch-high walnut Enthroned Virgin and Child, from the Île-de-France, painted in polychrome, gilded ocher, accession number 25.120.290. Although O’Connor claimed her statue “wasn’t colored,” Michael Carter, Cloisters librarian, says, “the color is often so faded on medieval statuary that someone might remember it as unpainted.” Michael Carter, in discussion with the author, February 9, 2006. McKane turned up a photo in a Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin that O’Connor agreed was the one; the June 1963 edition of the Bulletin includes a photo of the statue on page 331.
178 “the Child had a face”: Ibid., July 9, 1963, HB, 529.
179 “about a baboon”: Wise Blood, CW, 79. The scene was included in newspaper ad copy as a thrill: “Rescues children from the big blaze,” New York Times, August 21, 1949; Jon Lance Bacon noted the connection in Flannery O’Connor and Cold War Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 122.
179 “I don’t think New York City”: Wray, “Flannery O’Connor on the West Side,” 74.
179 “culture fog”: FOC to Betty Boyd, October 17, 1949, HB, 16.
179 “comes in there August 15”: FOC to Brainard Cheney, August 13, 1957, CC, 59.
179 “Me and Enoch”: FOC to Robie Macauley, [n.d.], CW, 886.
180 “miles from anything”: FOC to Betty Boyd, [n.d.], CW, 883.
180 Redding: The Fitzgeralds, and O’Connor, used a Ridgefield mailing address — R.D.4/Ridgefield, Conn. — because rural delivery to that portion of Redding was handled at the time by the Ridgefield post office.
180 “hurt their feet”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xiii.
180 “which I find”: FOC to Betty Boyd, October 17, 1949, HB, 16.
180 “looking slender”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xiv.
180 “Flannery would lie”: “Panel Discussion: GCSU, April 3, 1977,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 6 (1977): 79.
181 “while the dinner”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 1, 1956, HB, 161.
181Miss Lonelyhearts: West’s influence shows up in drafts of Wise Blood, as “Shrike,” the newspaper editor in Miss Lonelyhearts, is used as the name for two different characters, and remains, as an allusion, in Sabbath’s correspondence with a newspaper advice columnist; Elizabeth Hardwick described West’s novels as “morality plays . . . classified as comedies” and “funny as a crutch.” Elizabeth Hardwick, “Funny as a Crutch,” New York Review of Books (November 6, 2003): 24. O’Connor later claimed that West was an influence “stylistically” in her early twenties, but she was “disappointed” upon rereading him: “Miss Lonely Hearts seemed a sentimental Christ figure which is a contradiction in terms.” FOC to Marcus Smith, July 12, 1976, CW, 1215.
181 “They were our movies”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xiv.
181 “gewgaws”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Patterns of Friendship,” 417.
181 “my adopted kin”: FOC to Sally Fitzgerald, December 26, 1954, CW, 927.
181 “master of the house”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Rooms with a View,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 10 (1981): 13.
181–182 “Well I can’t sustain”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Panel Discussion,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 6 (1977): 78.
182 “due to criticism”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Sally Fitzgerald.
182 “The novel is going”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, October 26, 1949, HB, 17.
182 “unethical”: Ibid.
182 “malicious”: FOC to Mavis McIntosh, October 31, 1949, CW, 884.
182 “a writer on my own”: Alice Alexander, “The Memory of Milledgeville’s Flannery O’Connor Is Still Green,” Atlanta Journal, March 28, 1979.
182 “outside”: FOC to Mary Virginia Harrison, October 15, 1949, GCSU.
182 “Marriages are always a shock”: FOC to Betty Boyd, November 17, 1949, HB, 19.
182 “She did husband”: Beth Dawkins Bassett, “Converging Lives,” Emory Magazine 58, no. 4 (April 1982): 19.
182 “We spent an hour”: Robert Lowell to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d., December 1949], Letters, 150–51.
183 “I won’t see you”: FOC to Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, [n.d.], CW, 886.
183 “having a kidney”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, December 30, 1949, GCSU.
183 “She wrote to me”: Wray, “Flannery O’Connor on the West Side,” 76.
183 “radical cure”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, February 13, 1950, CW, 887.
183 “We worked on at our jobs”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xvi.
183 “I noted what good spirits”: Giroux, “Introduction,” Complete Stories, xi.
184 “She was now one of”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises, xvi.
184 “typing arms”: Ibid.
184 “I am wondering”: FOC to Betty Hester, March 5, 1960, CW, 1123–24.
184 “ran from one end”: FOC to Maryat Lee, October 9, 1962, HB, 495.
185 “smiling perhaps”: “Editor’s Note,” HB, 21.
185 “a shriveled old”: Ibid., 22.
185 “a state of complete”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Sally Fitzgerald.
CHAPTER SIX: THE LIFE YOU SAVE
189 “any story I reveal”: FOC to Betty Hester, September 24, 1955, CW, 957.
189 “I know for a fact”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,” Everything That Rises Must Converge (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1965) xiv. O’Connor assured him that the description was based on a visit to the Manhattan “cold-water flat” of her Mademoiselle editor, and Guggenheim recommender, George Davis. FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, February 11, 1958, HB, 267.
190 “Borne home”: FOC to Maryat L
ee, October 9, 1962, HB, 495.
190 “full of old rain crows”: FOC to Betty Boyd Love, December 23, 1950, CW, 888.
191 “He was a little fella”: Margaret Uhler, in discussion with the author, July 20, 2004.
191 “Internal medicine”: Dr. Zeb Burrell, in discussion with the author, October 1, 2004.
191 “Am in the hospital”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, December 19, 1950, GCSU.
191 “Scientist Merrill”: FOC to Maryat Lee, March 27, 1962, GCSU.
191 “the Scientist”: FOC to Frances Neel Cheney, August 3, 1955, CC, 20.
192 “I stayed there a month”: FOC to Betty Boyd Love, April 24, 1951, HB, 24.
192 “She was already weak”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Sally Fitzgerald.
192 SLE: While women are ten times more likely to develop SLE than men, and black women three times more likely than white women, “kinship patterns” of lupus shared by family members, including father-daughter, are not uncommon. Dr. Michael Lockshin, Joan and Sanford Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University, e-mail to author, March 12, 2007.
192 “it comes and goes”: FOC to Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, March 17, 1953, CW, 910.
192 “I have not had the rash”: FOC to Elizabeth Fenwick Way, May 2, 1957, HB, 217.
192 “When I was nearly dead”: FOC to Maryat Lee, August 2, 1961, HB, 448.
193 “In ’51”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 15, 1964, CW, 1208.
193 “I owe my existence”: Ibid., February 11, 1958, CW, 1063.
193 “I was an intern”: Robert Coles, in discussion with the author, January 2, 2004.
193 “moon-like”: FOC to Janet McKane, April 2, 1964, HB, 572.
193 “I was five years writing”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 25, 1955, CW, 970.
194 “the large doses of ACTH”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, September 20, 1951, CW, 890.
194 “during this time”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 2, 1955, CW, 970.
194 “a subtle parody”: “Frustrated Preacher,” Newsweek (May 19, 1952): 115.
194 “I just unfortunately”: FOC to Carl Hartman, March 2, 1954, CW, 922.
195 “I have finished my opus”: FOC to Betty Boyd Love, April 24, 1951, HB, 24.
195 “Me & maw”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, September 20, 1951, CW, 890.
196 “You could, literally”: Robert Strozier, in discussion with the author, Septem-ber 14, 2004.