Flannery: a life of Flannery O'Connor by Brad GoochFlannery O'Connor felt that her life wasn't interesting enough for a biography. Brad Gooch (City poet: the life and times of Frank O'Hara) 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)
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