The Graces of Flannery O’Connor

A review of Good Things Out of Nazareth: The Uncollected Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Friends (Convergent Books, 2019) edited by Benjamin Alexander.

One of the more agreeable and important books about literature to emerge recently is Good Things Out of Nazareth: The Uncollected Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Friends, edited by Benjamin Alexander who recently retired from teaching literature at the University of Steubenville. This collection of Flannery O’Connor’s correspondence follows three other collections and should not be missed by those interested in O’Connor’s work.

O’Connor punched far above her weight, if her weight is measured in terms of her modest corpus —two compilations of short stories, two novels, and one collection of essays—but her influence has been immense and it seems that her star is still on the rise, judging from the scholarly activity that continues to orbit her legacy. Why is that so? The answer is manifold, but one of the things that has made O’Connor’s work so appealing is O’Connor herself: her correspondence, published posthumously, is a goldmine of piercing insight, astute observations, and startling reflections on everything from literature to philosophy to raising peacocks, all written with her mordant wit. It also provides us with extensive commentary on her own work, more than almost any other author, as she discussed her work with acquaintances, friends, editors (formal and informal), and publishers.