Flannery (58 page)

212
“Thank you for sending”: Quoted in Elie,
The Life You Save,
501.

212
“Evalin Wow”: FOC to Robert and Sally Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Wednesday,”
CW,
897.

212
“Does he suppose”: FOC to Robert Lowell, May 2, 1952,
CW,
896.

212
“writes of an insane”: Isaac Rosenfeld, “To Win by Default,”
New Republic,
127 no. 1 (July 7, 1952): 19–20.

212
“in a pallid light”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,”
CW,
899.

213
“But Rosenfeld”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,”
Everything That Rises,
xviii.

213
“looking ravaged”: Ibid., xix.

213
“climbed in the car”: FOC to Caroline Gordon, September 10, 1952,
CW,
900.

214
“after being helpful”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,”
Everything That Rises,
xix.

214
“allergic”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,”
CW,
899.

214
“slum child”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,”
Everything That Rises,
xix.

214
“had to stay”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,”
CW,
898.

214
“pure Georgia rhetoric”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,”
Everything That Rises,
xix.

215
“Flannery, you don’t have”: The account is taken from Christopher O’Hare’s interview with Sally Fitzgerald.

216
“You always overdo!” Rosemary Magee and Emily Wright, “The Good Guide: A Final Conversation with Sally Fitzgerald,”
Flannery O’Connor Review
3 (2005): 22.

216
“She was a very nice-looking”: FOC to Sally Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,” July 1952,
HB,
38.

216
“It was a great boon”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,”
CW,
899.

217
“a kind of Guggenheim”: FOC to Sally Fitzgerald, [n.d.], Summer 1952,
HB,
40.

217
“I know now that it is”: FOC to Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Tuesday,”
CW,
899.

217
“over the phone”: FOC to Sally Fitzgerald, [n.d.] Summer 1952,
HB,
40.

218
“a gret place”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d., Summer 1952], “Sunday,”
HB,
40.

218
“I’m going to order”: FOC, “The King of the Birds,”
CW,
833.

219
“my one-cylander”: FOC to John Hawkes, July 27, 1958,
CW,
1075: “I braved the Faulkner, without tragic results. Probably the real reason I don’t read him is because he makes me feel that with my one-cylander syntax I should quit writing and raise chickens altogether.”

220
“Someone said you had something”: Robert Lowell to Flannery O’Connor, [n.d.] December 1953,
Letters,
203.

220
“I did have one in
Harper’s
”: FOC to Robert Lowell, January 1, [1954],
HB,
65.

220
Shiftlet: “Harry Shiftlet Now with Airborne Artillery Battalion,”
Union-Recorder,
May 12, 1955.

220
“a triumph”: Robert Fitzgerald, “Introduction,”
Everything That Rises,
xx.

221
Kenyon Review
fiction fellowship: The
Kenyon Review
Fellowship in Fiction was funded by the Rockefeller Foundation. The two other 1953 fellows were Irving Howe, in Criticism; and Edwin Watkins, in poetry.

221
“The Life You Save May Be Your Own”: The story was published in
Kenyon Review
15, Spring 1953; reprinted in
Prize Stories 1954: The O. Henry Awards,
edited by Paul Engle and Hansford Martin; and as the third story in
A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

CHAPTER SEVEN: THE “BIBLE” SALESMAN

222
“Like all good farm folk”: FOC to Louise and Tom Gossett, April 10, 1961,
HB,
438.

222
“routine is a condition”: FOC to Betty Hester, February 10, 1962,
HB,
465.

222
“14th century man”: Thomas Merton,
The Journals of Thomas Merton: Volume Four, 1960–1963,
edited by Victor A. Kramer (San Francisco: Harper, 1997): “March 11 1961” entry, 98.

223
“hermit novelist”: FOC to Maryat Lee, June 28, 1957,
CW,
1036.

223
A Short Breviary:
O’Connor picked up from the Fitzgeralds the practice of reading from this collection of daily hymns, offices, and prayers for the canonical hours, used especially by monks, nuns, and priests.

223
“Flannery sat in the
fifth
”: Elizabeth Horne, quoted in George A. Kilcourse, Jr.,
Flannery O’Connor’s Religious Imagination
(New York: Paulist Press, 2001), 2.

223
“I like to go”: FOC to Brainard Cheney, November 29, 1953,
CC,
10.

223
“Nobody lays a hand”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 3, 1963,
HB,
533.

223
“She didn’t want to come back”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Margaret Florencourt Mann.

223
“My round uncle”: FOC to William Sessions, September 1, 1955,
HB,
240.

224
“Get that scoundrel”: FOC, “The King of the Birds,”
CW,
840.

224
“That was our weekend”: Mary Jo Thompson, in discussion with the author, May 25, 2004.

224
“the colored milker”: FOC to Brainard and Frances Neel Cheney, December 10, 1957,
CC,
63.

224
“blundering around”: FOC to Thomas Stritch, January 22, 1964,
CW,
1196.

224–225
“around here”: FOC to Betty Hester, January 11, 1958,
CW,
1059.

225
“Wormless they did not”: FOC to Mrs. Rumsey Haynes, July 18, 1956, GSCU.

225
“set time”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, September 22, 1957,
CW,
1043.

225
“But I may tear it”: Betsy Lochridge, “An Afternoon with Flannery O’Connor,”
Atlanta Journal and Constitution Magazine
(November 1, 1959): 40.

225
“I have a large ugly”: FOC to Betty Hester, June 1, 1956,
HB,
161.

225
“rat’s nest”: Ibid., October 12, 1955,
HB,
109.

225
“You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead” was published in
New World Writing
8, October 1955, and revised and rewritten as the opening chapter of
The Violent Bear It Away.
Its original title, when first submitted to
NWW,
was “When the Plague Beckons.”

226
“The River” was published in
Sewanee Review
61, Summer 1953, and as the second story in
A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

226
“Evy eye”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Thursday,”
CW,
904.

226
“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” was published in
The Avon Book of Modern Writing I,
edited by William Phillips and Philip Rahv, 1953, including stories by Colette, Diana Trilling, Irving Howe, Isaac Rosenfeld; reprinted in 1960 in
The House of Fiction,
edited by Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate; and was the opening story in the collection of the same title.

226
“The Misfit”: “‘The Misfit’ Robs Office, Escapes with $150,”
Atlanta Constitution
(November 6, 1952): 29.

226
Bessie Smith’s: Sally Fitzgerald, “Happy Endings,”
Image: A Journal of the Arts and Religion
16 (Summer 1977): 77.

226
“It was no coincidence”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Sally Fitzgerald.

227
“Catie would read”: Robert Giroux, in discussion with the author, November 13, 2003.

227
“I remember one day”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Robert Giroux.

227
“Both the baptizing”: Robert Lowell to FOC, [n.d.] December 1953,
Letters,
203.

227
“a fresh mind”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, September 22, 1957,
CW,
1043.

227
“receiving on the front”: FOC to Maryat Lee, [n.d.] “Thursday,”
HB,
447.

227
“I work in the mornings”: FOC to Louise Abbot, February 27, 1957,
HB,
205.

227
“One of the few signs”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Louise Abbot.

227–228
“None of my paintings”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, [n.d.] “Friday,”
CW,
912.

228
“Never saw such long”: FOC, “The King of the Birds,”
CW,
837.

228
“I go to bed at nine”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 9, 1957,
CW,
1042.

228
“I read it for about twenty”: Ibid., August 9, 1955,
CW,
945.

228
“I read a lot of theology”: FOC to Cudden Ward, March 29, 1964, UNC.

229
“I can with one eye”: FOC to Elizabeth Hardwick and Robert Lowell, March 17, 1953,
CW,
910.

229
“I stayed away”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, July 16, 1957,
CW,
1037.

229
“a Dane”: Ann Waldron,
Close Connections: Caroline Gordon and the Southern Renaissance
(New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1987): 350.

229
“After checking out”: Helen I. Greene, “My Flannery O’Connor,”
Flannery O’Connor Bulletin
19 (1990): 47.

229
“She was sure that Flannery”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Erik Langkjaer.

230
“He and Mary Flannery”: Greene, “My Flannery O’Connor,” 47.

231
“I never heard of
Conversations
”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, May 7, 1953,
HB,
58.

231
Danish-British accent: Some of the background details of the account are taken from a personal interview with Erik Langkjaer, on May 7, 2007, as well as several e-mail exchanges.

231
“that I had come to the U.S.”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Erik Langkjaer.

232
“You wonder how anybody”: FOC to Erik Langkjaer, April 1, 1955, private collection.

232
“practically bald-headed”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, January 25, 1953,
CW,
907.

232
“a little bloated”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Erik Langkjaer.

232
“the saint everyone”: Ibid.

233
“Was he ever handsome”: Mary Jo Thompson, in discussion with the author, May 25, 2004.

233
“I used to go with her nephew”: FOC to Betty Hester, August 28, 1955,
CW,
949.

234
“the most melodramatic”: FOC to Maryat Lee, October 14, 1959,
CW,
1113.

234
“I remember there were cowbells”: Pete Dexter, in discussion with the author, January 21, 2005.

234
“The Partridge Festival” was published in the
Critic
19, March 1961.

235
“my mother still didn’t”: FOC to Cecil Dawkins, August 10, 1960,
HB,
405.

235
“Quincy State Hospital”: FOC to John Hawkes, June 22, 1961,
CW,
1151.

235
“She liked to point it out”: Erik Langkjaer, in discussion with the author, May 7, 2007.

235
“The Cheneys said”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, May 7, 1953,
HB,
58.

235
“theologically weighted symbolism”: Brainard Cheney, review of
Wise Blood, Shenandoah
3 (Autumn 1952): 57.

235
“eventful”: FOC to Betty Boyd Love, October 18, 1951,
HB,
29.

236
“Mrs. C.”: FOC to Sally and Robert Fitzgerald, May 7, 1953,
HB,
58.

236
“the petit cercle”: Caroline Gordon to Sue Jenkins, [n.d., mid-January 1958], quoted in Ashley Brown, “An Unwritten Drama: Sue Jenkins Brown and Flannery O’Connor,”
Southern Review
22 (Autumn 1986): 729.

236
“Cleanth Brooks and others”: Ashley Brown, “Flannery O’Connor: A Literary Memoir,”
Realist of Distances,
19.

237
“At that stage”: Christopher O’Hare interview with Ashley Brown.

237
“I’m no Georgia Kafka”: FOC to Ashley Brown, May 22, 1953,
CW,
911.

237
“She was intelligent”: Ashley Brown, in discussion with the author, April 30, 2007.

237
“Whatever do you want”: Brown, “Flannery O’Connor,” 23.

237
“I consider Caroline”: Brainard Cheney to FOC, March 2, 1953,
CC,
5.

237
“We just hit it off”: Jean Cash,
Flannery O’Connor: A Life
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2002), 212.

238
“She seems a very solid”: Brainard Cheney to Robert Penn Warren, August 24, 1953,
CC,
8.

238
“This seems to me her”: Brown, “Flannery O’Connor,” 22.

239
“I heard a lot of Tennessee”: FOC to Robie Macauley, October 13, 1953,
CW,
914.