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Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connorby Brad Gooch
Synopses & ReviewsPublisher Comments:The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships — with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others — and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as A in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. O'Connor's capacity to live fully — despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mother's farm in Georgia — is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography. Review:"Gooch (City Poet: The Life and Times of Frank O'Hara) offers a surprisingly bloodless biography of Flannery O'Connor (1925 — 1964), who, despite the author's diligent scholarship, remains enigmatic. She emerges only in her excerpted letters, speeches and fiction, where she is as sharp-tongued, censorious, piteously observant and mordantly funny as her beloved short stories. There is little genuinely interesting new material, but there are small gems — the full story of O'Connor's friendship with the mysterious A. of her letters, for instance. Perhaps mindful of the writer's dislike of being exposed in print, Gooch errs on the side of delicacy; he does not sufficiently explore her attitudes toward blacks and how the early onset of lupus left her sequestered on her mother's Georgia farm, without the 'male companionship' she craved. Instead, he plumbs O'Connor's fiction for buried fragments of her daily life, and the revelations are hardly astonishing. Readers looking for more startling tidbits will be disappointed by this account that brims with the quiet satisfactions the author took in her industry ('I sit all day typing and grinning like the Cheshire cat'), her faith, friends and stoic approach to a debilitating disease. 16 pages of b&w photos. Two journalists reflect." Publishers Weekly (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.) Review:In February 1951, Flannery O'Connor was diagnosed with systemic lupus erythematosus, the disease that had killed her father 10 years earlier at the age of 45; she died of it 13 years later at the age of 39. In between that diagnosis and her death, she wrote almost nonstop. It is a life's work slender enough to be contained in a single volume in the Library of America, yet it occupies a large place... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Book News Annotation:Flannery O'Connor felt that her life wasn't interesting enough for a
biography. Gooch (English, William Paterson University, NJ) begs to
differ. Although O'Connor spent most of her life, apart from
schooling, in Georgia, living with a mother who didn't appreciate her
writing and suffering from lupus, she managed to create worlds from
chance meetings and minor events. Gooch uses the image of the chicken
that O'Connor taught to walk backwards as the thread through the
author's stories and her own life. He also treats her unwavering
Catholicism as a factor, but not the only one, in O'Connor's make up.
Her literary relationship with that other devout heretic, Thomas
Merton, is an example of this. Gooch has written an honest portrayal
of a writer's life, one that well might have pleased and amused its
subject.
Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com) Review:"Flannery O'Connor, one of the best American writers of short fiction, has found her ideal biographer in Brad Gooch. With elegance and fairness, Gooch deals with the sensitive areas of race and religion in O'Connor's life. He also takes us back to those heady days after the war when O'Connor studied creative writing at Iowa. There is much that is new in this book, but, more important, everything is presented in a strong, clear light." Edmund White Review:"This splendid biography gives us no saint or martyr but the story of a gifted and complicated woman, bent on making the best of the difficult hand fate has dealt her, whether it is with grit and humor or with an abiding desire to make palpable to readers the terrible mystery of God's grace." Frances Kiernan Review:"A good biographer is hard to find. Brad Gooch is not merely good — he is extraordinary. Blessed with the eye and ear of a novelist, he has composed the life that admirers of the fierce and hilarious Georgia genius have long been hoping for." Joel Conarroe Review:"If O'Connor's writing glows with edged comic genius, biographer Gooch is himself no slouch. If a library is to have only one book on Flannery O'Connor, this should be it." Charles C. Nash, Library Journal Synopsis:In this engaging and authoritative biography, Gooch brings to life Flannery O'Connor's significant friendships and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Synopsis:The landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery O'Connor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life O'Connor's significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others--and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as A in O'Connor's collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from O'Connor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. O'Connor's capacity to live fully--despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mother's farm in Georgia--is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography. PRAISE FOR FLANNERY Flannery O'Connor, one of the best American writers of short fiction, has found her ideal biographer in Brad Gooch. With elegance and fairness, Gooch deals with the sensitive areas of race and religion in O'Connor's life. He also takes us back to those heady days after the war when O'Connor studied creative writing at Iowa. There is much that is new in this book, but, more important, everything is presented in a strong, clear light. --Edmund White This splendid biography gives us no saint or martyr but the story of a gifted and complicated woman, bent on making the best of the difficult hand fate has dealt her, whether it is with grit and humor or with an abiding desire to make palpable to readers the terrible mystery of God's grace. --Frances Kiernan, author of Seeing Mary Plain: A Life of Mary McCarthy A good biographer is hard to find. Brad Gooch is not merely good-he is extraordinary. Blessed with the eye and ear of a novelist, he has composed the life that admirers of the fierce and hilarious Georgia genius have long been hoping for. — Joel Conarroe, President Emeritus, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation What Our Readers Are SayingAdd a comment for a chance to win!
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