by Brad Gooch
350 “reflect the Teilhardian”: John Kobler, “The Priest Who Haunts the Catholic World,” Saturday Evening Post 236 (October 12, 1963): 42.
351 Thomas Merton: Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert (New York: New Directions, 1960).
351 “Nobody can get me out”: FOC to Ashley Brown, October 28, 1962, Princeton.
351 “a Negro nightclub”: FOC to John Hawkes, November 24, 1962, HB, 500.
351 “because we lost the War”: FOC, “The Regional Writer,” MM, 59.
352 “thrown at first by her deep”: Jay Tolson, Pilgrim in the Ruins (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1992): 307; Tolson is quoting from a letter by Walter Percy to Phinizy Spalding, March 1, 1963.
352 “oppressive”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 11, 1963, HB, 518.
352 “something (fishy)”: FOC to Thomas Stritch, June 14, 1963, CW, 1185.
352 “I appreciate and need”: FOC to Sister Mariella Gable, May 4, 1963, 1184.
352–353 “I have been working all summer”: FOC to John Hawkes, September 10, 1963, HB, 537.
353 “country women”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, November 5, 1963, HB, 546.
353 “reward for setting”: Ibid., May 19, 1964, HB, 579.
354 “how in the 6th grade”: Maryat Lee, draft of letter to Rosa Lee Walston, private collection.
354 “made Mary Grace”: FOC to Betty Hester, May 17, 1964, HB, 578.
354 “a country female Jacob”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 15, 1964, CW, 1207.
354 “How am I a hog”: CW, 652; I owe the insight about the connection between O’Connor’s reading of Shakespeare and Mrs. Turpin’s soliloquy to Paul Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003), 353.
354 “gets the vision”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 17, 1964, CW, 1207.
355 “Caroline was crazy about”: FOC to Betty Hester, January 25, 1964, CW, 1199.
355“blackest”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 25, 1963, HB, 554.
355 “I like Mrs. Turpin”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 15, 1964, CW, 1207.
355 “half interest”: Ibid., May 21, 1964, CW, 1209.
355 “I emulate my better characters”: FOC to Betty Hester, January 25, 1964, CW, 1199.
355 “magnificent things”: Jean W. Cash, “The Flannery O’Connor–Andrew Lytle Connection,” Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 25 (1996–97): 191.
355 “The breath was pushed out”: Maryat Lee to FOC, April 20, 1964, GCSU.
355–356 “I felt ‘Revelation’ marked”: Louise Abbot, in discussion with the author, June 2, 2004.
356 “Not enough blood”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 25, 1963, HB, 554.
356 “hitting this typewriter”: Ibid., November 23, 1963, HB, 549.
356 “frisking”: FOC to Cudden Ward Dorrance, January 5, 1964, UNC.
356 “round it out”: FOC to Robert Giroux, January 25, 1964, HB, 563.
357 “I have the Original Tin Ear”: FOC to Betty Hester, January 25, 1964, CW, 1200.
357 “straight up and down”: FOC to Thomas Stritch, February 11, 1964, CW, 1200.
357 “All I can say”: FOC to Betty Hester, February 14, 1964, HB, 566.
357 “Geritol”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, March 22, 1961, HB, 435.
357 “All commercial television”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, November 23, 1963, HB, 550.
357 “postponed my work”: FOC to Betty Hester, April 13, 1963, HB, 513.
358 “loaded with cortisone”: FOC to John Hawkes, February 20, 1964, HB, 567.
358 “didn’t seem so hot”: FOC to Betty Hester, March 14, 1964, CW, 1203.
358 “It was all a howling”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, March 8, 1964, HB, 568.
358 “not doing any brain work”: FOC to Maryat Lee, March 21, 1964, GCSU.
358 “I suspect it has kicked”: FOC to Betty Hester, March 28, 1964, HB, 571.
359 “we both want to locate”: FOC to Cudden Ward Dorrance, Easter, March 24, 1964, UNC.
359 “Monday I woke up”: FOC to Brainard Cheney, April 22, 1964, CC, 187.
359 “Jolly Corners”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 3, 1964, GCSU.
360 “I think I’ll be able”: FOC to Elizabeth McKee, May 7, 1964, HB, 575.
360 “I am writing me this story”: FOC to Charlotte Gafford, May 10, 1964, HB, 576.
360 “I havent had it active”: FOC to Louise and Tom Gossett, May 12, 1964, HB, 576.
360 “My my I do like”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 15, 1964, CW, 1207.
360 “very sorry story”: FOC to Robert Giroux, May 21, 1964, HB, 579.
361 “Going to Piedmont”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 21, 1964, CW, 1209.
361 “he knows what he’s doing”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 26, 1964, GCSU.
361 “By now, I know”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 10, 1964, HB, 583.
362 “breezed in”: FOC to Ashley Brown, June 15, 1964, HB, 584.
362 “After the nurse had left”: Caroline Gordon, “Heresy in Dixie,” Sewanee Review 76, no. 2 (Spring 1968): 266.
362 “I am sick of being sick”: FOC to Louise Abbot, May 28, 1964, CW, 1210.
362 “fourth or fifth”: Abbot, “Remembering Flannery,” 79.
362 “Mizz O’Connor”: Robert Coles, in discussion with the author, January 2, 2004.
362 “You will find here”: Robert Coles, “Introduction,” Flannery O’Connor’s South (Athens and London: Brown Thrasher Books/University of Georgia Press, 1993), xviii.
362 “too high so you can’t write”: FOC to Cudden Ward Dorrance, June 2, 1964, UNC.
363 “I have another in the making”: FOC to Catharine Carver, June 17, 1964, CW, 1210.
363 “like fabric”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 17, 1964, CW, 1217.
363–364 “I read my Mass prayers”: FOC to Janet McKane, April 2, 1964, HB, 572.
364 “little blocks”: FOC, “Parker’s Back,” CW, 667. Possible sources for this visual detail are: Betty Hester, as a 1962 Christmas gift, sent O’Connor André Malraux’s Voices of Silence, with an illustration of the ninth-century Christ in Glory from the Cathedral of Santa Sophia in Constantinople; William Sessions and his wife, Jenny, also sent a postcard with a Byzantine Christ from Greece in the summer of 1961.
364“one month”: FOC to Brainard and Frances Neel Cheney, June 19, 1964, CC, 191.
364 “Dr. Fulghum is back”: FOC to Maryat Lee, June 23, 1964, CW, 1211–12.
364 “Margaret”: FOC to Janet McKane, June 19, 1964, CW, 1211.
364 “I can get out”: FOC to Cudden Ward Dorrance, June 24, 1964, UNC.
364 “I look like a bull frog”: FOC to Thomas Stritch, June 28, 1964, CW, 1213.
365 “a few weeks longer”: FOC to Robert Giroux, June 28, 1964, HB, 589.
365 “mellower”: Frederick Asals, Flannery O’Connor: The Imagination of Extremity (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1982), 141.
365 “hearing the celestial chorus”: FOC to Maryat Lee, May 15, 1964, CW, 1208.
365 “The wolf”: FOC to Sister Mariella Gable, July 5, 1964, HB, 591.
366 “fancy”: FOC to Janet McKane, July 8, 1964, CW, 1214.
366 “into the typewriter”: FOC to Catharine Carver, July 15, 1964, CW, 1216.
366 “Congratulations”: Gordon, “Heresy in Dixie,” 266.
366 “a lot of advice”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 25, 1964, CW, 1218.
367 “It’s six of one”: FOC to Maryat Lee, July 26, 1964, CW, 1219.
367 “Sickness before death”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 28, 1956, CW, 997.
367 “They expect me to improve”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, June 24, 1964, HB, 587.
367 “Dear Raybat”: FOC to Maryat Lee, July 28, 1964, CW, 1220.
367 “Mary Flannery enjoyed”: Regina O’Connor to Maryat Lee, August 17, 1964, GCSU.
368 “We had not dreamed”: Mary Jo Thompson, in discussion with the author, May 25, 2004.
368 “A friend”: Abbot, “Remembering Flannery,” 79–81; much of the account of O’Connor’s funeral is based on A
bbot’s memoir.
368 Abbot Augustine More: Georgia A. Newman, “A ‘Contrary Kinship’”: The Correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and Maryat Lee — Early Years, 1957–1959 (PhD dissertation, University of South Florida, 1999), 209.
368 “There was a lot of people”: Alfred Matysiak, in discussion with the author, July 27, 2004.
369 “nursery pink”: FOC to James Farnham, May 18, 1964, Flannery O’Connor Bulletin 12 (1983): 66.
370 Privately: Regina O’Connor to Mrs. Rumsey Haynes, September 12, 1964, GCSU.
370 “one of the nation’s”: “Flannery O’Connor Dead at 39,” New York Times, August 4, 1964.
371 “most highly regarded”: “Flannery O’Connor Leaves Inspiration,” Atlanta Constitution, August 4, 1964.
371 “Flannery had made it”: Barbara Tunnicliff Hamilton, “Flannery in Iowa City,” 4, private collection.
371 “I think the cards”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, August 10, 1964, The Letters of Robert Lowell, edited by Saskia Hamilton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 453.
371 “I went and found only two”: Robert Giroux to Caroline Gordon, October 8, 1964, FSG. Giroux mistakenly refers to McKane as “Miss McClune” in the original letter.
372 “her promise”: Charles Poore, “The Wonderful Stories of Flannery O’Connor,” New York Times, May 27, 1965.
372 “The work of a master”: “Grace Through Nature,” Newsweek (May 31, 1965): 86.
372 “Do you really think”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, Novem-ber 13, 2003.
373 “the soft-spoken”: Henry Raymont, “Notes of Concern Mark Book Awards Ceremony,” New York Times, April 14, 1972.
373 “one of those flimsy”: Maryat Lee, draft of a letter to Rosa Lee Walston, private collection.
374 “Now she rests”: FOC, “Judgment Day,” CW, 695; I am grateful to Paul Elie’s detailed description of the late revisions to the typescript, “observed firsthand in the Farrar, Straus and Giroux offices,” in Elie, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, 375.
Brad Gooch is the author of the acclaimed biography of Frank O’Hara, City Poet. The recipient of National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, he earned his PhD at Columbia University and is professor of English at William Paterson University in New Jersey.