by Brad Gooch
315 “obscure”: Brainard Cheney to FOC, [n.d., late July? 1959], CC, 91.
315 “too much a parody”: FOC to Catharine Carver, April 18, 1959, CW, 1094.
315 “When the grim reaper”: Ibid., March 27, 1959, CW, 1090.
315 “work on Tarwater”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 16, 1959, CW, 1096.
315 “an elderly French gentleman”: FOC to Maryat Lee, March 29, 1959, HB, 325.
315 “monde tragicomique”: Melvin J. Friedman, “Flannery O’Connor in France: An Interim Report,” Critical Essays on Flannery O’Connor, edited by Melvin J. Friedman and Beverly Lyon Clark (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1985), 132.
315 “sort of uptight”: Jean Cash, Flannery O’Connor: A Life (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 280.
316 “Whoever invented”: FOC to Maryat Lee, April 25, 1959, CW, 1095.
316 “I found her witty”: Robert Penn Warren, Esprit: Journal of Thought and Opinion 8, no. 1 (University of Scranton, Scranton, Pa., Winter 1964): 49.
316 “all my famous authors”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, November 13, 2003.
316 “When I read Flannery”: Thomas Merton, “Flannery O’Connor,” Jubilee 12, no. 7 (November 1964): 52.
316 “The aura of aloneness”: Robert Giroux, “Introduction,” The Complete Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971): xiii.
316 “The car was going”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Robert Giroux.
317 “Her life is what you”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, February 24, 1960, Words in the Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell, edited by Thomas Traviso with Saskia Hamilton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008), 312. In this letter, Lowell expresses disappointment that their nomination of O’Connor for membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters was unsuccessful that year. Among those admitted were Richard Eberhart, Harry Levin, and Willem de Kooning.
317 “I sit all day”: FOC to Maryat Lee, July 5, 1959, HB, 339.
317 “Does it have symbolisms”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 25, 1959, CW, 1101–102.
318 “the best thing I’ve read”: FOC to Caroline Gordon, May 10, 1959, HB, 332.
318 “I was not ABOUT”: FOC to Betty Hester, October 31, 1959, Emory.
318 “this is the best stage”: FOC to Maryat Lee, July 5, 1959, HB, 339.
318 “The Comforts of Home”: The story was published in Kenyon Review 22, Fall 1960, and was the fifth story in Everything That Rises Must Converge.
318–319 “It would be fashionable”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 9, 1955, CW, 946.
319 “I was pretty disappointed”: FOC to Robie Macauley, January 2, 1961, GCSU.
319 “unaware of the strangely sexual”: Betty Hester to Greg Johnson, November 20 [1996], private collection.
319 “revulsion at the frankly sexual”: Spivey, Flannery O’Connor, 31.
319 “pious slop”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 30, 1960, HB, 394.
319 “Mr. Truman Capote”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 8, 1955, CW, 973.
319 “As for lesbianism”: FOC to Beverly Brunson, September 13, 1954, CW, 925.
320 “The School of Southern Degeneracy”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 19, 1959, HB, 363.
320 “literary white witch”: Orville Prescott, New York Times (February 24, 1960).
320 “strong medicine”: Donald Davidson, “A Prophet Went Forth,” New York Times Book Review (February 28, 1960): 4.
320 “Southern Gothic”: Granville Hicks, “Southern Gothic with a Vengeance,” Saturday Review (February 27, 1960): 18.
320 “a retiring, bookish”: “God-Intoxicated Hillbillies,” Time (February 29, 1960): 118.
320 “having a dirty hand”: FOC to Brainard Cheney, February 26, 1960, CC, 108.
320 “My lupus has no business”: FOC to Maryat Lee, March 5, 1960, HB, 380.
320 “Perhaps I have created”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, February 28, 1960, HB, 377.
321 “hard intelligence”: Joan Didion, National Review 8, no. 15 (April 9, 1960): 240.
321 “a young writer”: Vogue, April 1, 1960.
321 “I received Flannery’s new book”: Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell, February 15, 1960, Words in the Air, 309.
321 “I hadn’t connected ‘Bishop’”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, February 24, 1960, ibid., 312.
321 “Yes, the Flannery book”: Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell, April 22, 1960, ibid., 315.
321 “wave of tenderness”: Maryat Lee, unpublished memoir, private collection.
322 “omnivorous reader”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Robert Giroux.
323 “My editor from Farrer”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, May 25, 1959, CW, 1097.
323 “I said I met the Father”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Robert Giroux.
323 “a new synthesis”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 22, 1958, CW, 1082.
323–324 “Only crisis theologians”: Ibid., November 8, 1958, CW, 1078.
324 “greatest of the Protestant”: Ibid., 1082.
324 “churchy”: FOC, review of Letters from Baron Friedrich von Hügel to a Niece, edited by Gwendolen Greene, Bulletin, June 23, 1956; PG, 21.
324 “total absence”: FOC, review of The Rosary of Our Lady, by Romano Guardini, Bulletin, April 28, 1955; PG, 16.
324 “theology of creativity”: FOC, review of The Image Industries, by William Lynch, S.J., Bulletin, August 8, 1959; PG, 75.
324Painting and Reality: FOC, review of Painting and Reality, by Etienne Gilson, Bulletin, May 3, 1958; PG, 56–57.
324 “Tay-ahr”: FOC, review of The Phenomenon of Man, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Bulletin, February 20, 1960; PG, 86–88.
325 “lucky find”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 25, 1959, HB, 367.
325 “giving a new face”: FOC, review of The Divine Milieu, by Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Bulletin, February 4, 1961; PG, 108.
325 “Pere Teilhard talks”: FOC to Janet McKane, February 25, 1963, CW, 1179.
326 “great mystic”: FOC to Betty Hester, February 4, 1961, CW, 1144.
326 “Jesuit mind”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, November 30, 1959, CW, 1114.
326 “parallels between Jung”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, March 16, 1960, HB, 383.
326 “his work is”: Brainard Cheney to FOC, October 7, 1962, CC, 157.
326American Scholar: “Outstanding Books, 1931–1961,” American Scholar 30, no. 4 (Autumn 1961): 618.
326 “too straitjacket”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, November 13, 2003.
326 “I am here to bless”: John Kobler, “The Priest Who Haunts the Catholic World,” Saturday Evening Post 236 (October 12, 1963): 45.
326 “regrettable”: Ibid.
326 “depressing at first”: FOC to Roslyn Barnes, August 4, 1962, CW, 1171.
326 “canonized yet”: FOC to Brainard Cheney, October 31, 1963, CC, 181.
326 “If they are good”: FOC to Father James H. McCown, March 21, 1964, CW, 1204.
327 “Looka there”: De Vene Harrold, unpublished memoir, 1, “FOC Collection,” GCSU.
327 “He was finicky”: A Conyers monk, in discussion with the author, August 8, 2004.
327 “giggler”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 14, 1960, Emory.
328 “What interests me”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 30, 1960, HB, 394.
328 “murder stories”: FOC to Robert Giroux, September 29, 1960, CW, 1133.
328 “plainly grotesque”: FOC, “Introduction to a Memoir of Mary Ann,” CW, 824.
328 “Hawthorne said he didn’t write”: FOC to William Sessions, September 13, 1960, CW, 1131.
329 “Lately I have had a recurrent”: FOC, “The King of the Birds,” CW, 842.
329 “Some Thoughts on the Catholic Novelist”: The talk was published as “The Role of the Catholic Novelist,” Greyfriar 7 (1964): 9.
329 “met no duds”: FOC to Betty Hester, October 27, 1960, HB, 414.
329 “I sou
nd pretty much like”: FOC to John Hawkes, October 9, 1960, CW, 1134.
330 “When Hawthorne said”: FOC, “Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction,” CW, 818.
330 “green with envy”: Elizabeth Bishop to Robert Lowell, May 5, 1959, Words in the Air, 300.
330 “strenuous”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, November 8, 1960, CW, 1135.
330 “I helped Regina in the kitchen”: De Vene Harrold, unpublished memoir, 3.
330 “I call that really having”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, November 8, 1960, CW, 1135.
330 “She and the Sisters”: FOC, “A Memoir of Mary Ann,” CW, 828.
331“Tout Ce Qui Monte Converge”: Giroux, “Introduction,” Collected Stories, xv.
331 “story called ‘Everything’”: FOC to Roslyn Barnes, March 29, 1961, HB, 438.
332 “King Kong”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 23, 1960, CW, 1130.
332 “the secularist-Baptist”: FOC to Maryat Lee, September 23, 1960, GCSU.
332 “All the rich widows”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, November 8, 1960, CW, 1135.
332 Gossetts: Ralph C. Wood, Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans Publishing, 2004), 117.
332 Sessions has recalled a Thanksgiving: Ibid., 113.
333 “All my thoughts”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 4, 1957, HB, 218.
333 “a young college instructor”: John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (New York: Signet Books, 1962), 134.
333 “If I had been one of them white”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 21, 1964, CW, 1208.
333 “not in blackface”: FOC to Father James H. McCown, October 28, 1960, HB, 414.
334 “I would call Flannery”: A Conyers monk, in discussion with the author, August 8, 2004.
334 “She never said anything racist”: Leonard Mayhew, in discussion with the author, December 15, 2004.
334 “patronizing: he belonged”: J. M. Coetzee, “The Making of William Faulkner,” New York Review of Books 52, no. 6 (April 7, 2005): 22.
335 “No I can’t see James Baldwin”: FOC to Maryat Lee, April 25, 1959, CW, 1094–95.
335 “Cheers, Tarklux”: FOC to Maryat Lee, August 17, 1962, GCSU.
335 “Tarconstructed”: Ibid., October 31, 1963.
335 “colored”: Maryat Lee to FOC, March 16, 1960, GCSU.
335 “her Easter hat”: Ibid., April 24, 1960.
336 “I don’t understand them”: Katherine Fugin, Faye Rivard, and Margaret Sieh, “An Interview with Flannery O’Connor,” Con (Fall 1960): 59.
336 “from the inner workings”: Alice Walker, “Beyond the Peacock: The Reconstruction of Flannery O’Connor,” In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (New York: Harcourt), 52.
336 “The topical is poison”: FOC to Betty Hester, September 1, 1963, HB, 537.
336 “Everything That Rises Must Converge”: The story was published in New World Writing 19, edited by Theodore Solotaroff, 1961; reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 1962, edited by Martha Foley and David Burnett; as the first-prize story in Prize Stories 1963: The O. Henry Awards, edited by Richard Poirier; and in First-Prize Stories, 1919–1963, edited by Harry Hansen. It is the opening story in the collection Everything That Rises Must Converge.
337 “Tarfeather”: FOC to Maryat Lee, August 22, 1960, GCSU.
337 “Raybutton”: Ibid., March 24, 1960.
337 “I’m cheered you like”: FOC to Maryat Lee, November 9, 1962, HB, 499.
337 “I feel very good”: Wood, Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South, 103.
337 “As long as he lived”: FOC to Betty Hester, February 4, 1961, CW, 1143–44.
337 “a hundred readers now”: FOC, “Catholic Novelists and Their Readers,” MM, 187; O’Connor was agreeing with a similar statement made by Arthur Koestler.
337 “love to be efficacious”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955, CW, 948.
CHAPTER TEN: “REVELATION”
338 “chauffeur”: FOC to Ashley Brown, July 5, 1961, Princeton.
338 “upstairs junk room”: Ibid., July 10, 1961.
338 “We got along”: Ashley Brown, in discussion with the author, April 30, 2007.
338 “Few people realized”: Caroline Gordon to Robert Giroux, October 13, 1964, FSG.
339 “a nice gangster”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, February 1, 1953, CW, 908.
339 “Bless you, darling!”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 10, 1955, CW, 969.
339 “completely undramatic”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, July 17, 1961, HB, 445.
340 “I’m amused by the letter”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, September 28, 1960, HB, 408.
340 “She did think the structure”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 22, 1961, HB, 446.
340 “Tomorrow I am orbiting”: FOC to Betty Hester, January 26, 1962, Emory.
340–341 “rehabilitation of a country boy”: “Tender Drama of Rebellious Youth Stars Elvis, Hope and Tuesday,” Union-Recorder, July 13, 1961.
341 “The little boy”: FOC to Betty Hester, November 3, 1962, HB, 498.
341 “I’m convinced that she used”: Maryat Lee, October 4, 1975, journal entry, private collection.
341 “away with murder”: Maryat Lee to Robert Giroux, March 22, 1976, FSG.
341 “smacked the windows”: Maryat Lee, draft of a letter to Rosa Lee Walston, private collection.
341–342 “I have a very strong”: Catherine Morai, in discussion with the author, September 26, 2004.
342 “The staff is non compos mentis”: FOC to Louise and Tom Gossett, April 10, 1961, HB, 438.
342 “radiated bulls”: FOC to Thomas Stritch, September 14, 1961, CW, 1152.
342 “I could hear the dull whine”: Richard Gilman, “On Flannery O’Connor,” New York Review of Books 13, no. 3 (August 21, 1969): 26.
343 “I don’t know anything”: FOC to Betty Hester, October 28, 1961, CW, 1152.
343 “completely hollow”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 13, 1961, HB, 439.
343 “This conversion was achieved”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, January 10, 1962, HB, 459–60.
344 “compete with PLAYBOY”: FOC to Robie Macauley, January 2, 1961, GCSU.
344 “found her fiction”: Jean Cash, Flannery O’Connor: A Life (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 87.
344 “immensely improved”: Andrew Lytle, Reference Letter for Flannery O’Connor’s 1956 Reapplication for a Fellowship, Archives of the J. S. Guggenheim Foundation.
344 “the grotesque”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 19, 1958, HB, 291.
344 “You may state without fear”: FOC to John Hawkes, July 27, 1958, CW, 1075.
344 “You suffer The Lime Twig”: John Hawkes’s The Lime Twig (New York: New Directions, 1961), excerpt of O’Connor’s book jacket praise.
344 “black”: John Hawkes, “Flannery O’Connor’s Devil,” Sewanee Review 70, no. 3 (Summer 1962): 400.
345 “In this one, I’ll admit”: FOC to John Hawkes, February 6, 1962, CW, 1157.
345 “I like the piece very much”: Ibid., April 5, 1962, CW, 1159.
345 “off-center”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, January 27, 1963, HB, 507.
345 “decided that I don’t like”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, May 28, 1962, HB, 475.
345 “But pray that the Lord”: FOC to Father James H. McCown, March 24, 1962, HB, 468.
345 “When I was a child”: FOC to Betty Hester, March 24, 1962, Emory.
346 “powerful social”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, April 25, 1962, CW, 1161.
346 “the worst book”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 22, 1961, HB, 446.
346 “I really liked Eudora”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, April 25, 1962, CW, 1161.
346 “‘Explanations’ are repugnant”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 10, 1961, HB, 442.
347 “a comic novel”: FOC, Wise Blood, “Author’s Note to the Second Edition” (New York: Farrar, Straus and Cudahy, 1962), 5.
347 “Now what did you go”: Maryat Lee to FOC, August 15, 1962, GCSU.
347 “F
lannery was a paradoxical”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, November 13, 2003.
347 “the writing is one thing”: Maryat Lee, draft of a letter to Rosa Lee Walston, private collection.
347 “much liquor”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 5, 1962, CW, 1162.
347 “odiferous diesel”: Joel Wells, “Off the Cuff,” Critic 21 (August/September 1962): 4.
347 “wrapped up in newspaper”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 9, 1962, HB, 478.
348 “They don’t interfere”: Granville Hicks, “A Writer at Home with Her Heritage,” Saturday Review 45 (May 12, 1962): 22.
348 “wearing a blue plaid”: Alfred Corn, in discussion with the author, March 10, 2005; in an e-mail of the same day, Corn wrote, “The more I think about it the more it seems that the unspoken undercurrent of my exchange with FO’C had to do with my being gay: ‘How can I believe in a religion that says God will punish me for being who I am, even though I didn’t choose my sexuality?”
348 “she was that awesome”: Alfred Corn, “An Encounter with O’Connor and ‘Parker’s Back,’” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 24 (1995–96): 106.
348 “At one time”: FOC to Alfred Corn, May 30, 1962, CW, 1164.
348 “Even if there were no Church”: Ibid., August 12, 1962, CW, 1173–74.
349 “There is a lot of ill-directed”: FOC to Dr. T. R. Spivey, June 21, 1959, CW, 1098.
349 “knew I was going to get married”: Ted R. Spivey, in discussion with the author, June 23, 2005.
349 “My Jung friend”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 30, 1960, HB, 394.
349 “an awful lot of porch-settin’”: Wells, “Off the Cuff,” Critic, 72.
349 “Flannery O’Connor’s novel”: FOC, The Complete Stories (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1971): 554–55.
350 “secular contemplative”: FOC, manuscript of “Why Do the Heathen Rage?” File 226b, GCSU.
350 “hermit novelist”: FOC to Maryat Lee, June 28, 1957, CW, 1036.
350 “I have broken through the ceiling”: FOC, manuscript of “Why Do the Heathen Rage?” File 218a, GCSU.
350 “The depth of respect”: Virginia Wray, “Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage? And the Quotidian ‘Larger Things,’” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 23 (1994–95): 25.
350 “plaid shirt”: FOC, manuscript of “Why Do the Heathen Rage?” File 216, GCSU.
350 “But it’s so obviously”: Louise H. Abbot, “Remembering Flannery,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 23 (1994–95): 75.