Flannery (63 page)

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
“Flannery 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.

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.