Flannery
Page 39
In Savannah, I was greatly helped from the outset by the Flannery O’Connor Childhood Home Foundation, especially its directors and officers Rena Patton, Robert Strozier, Carl Weeks, and Bill Dawers, my trusty guide to contemporary Savannah. Mrs. Hugh R. Brown, diocesan archivist, opened to me the O’Connor family church records, and gave me access to an informative essay and panel interviews conducted by her late husband, Hugh R. Brown. I was pleased to speak with O’Connor’s second cousin Patricia Persse and other Savannah childhood friends and acquaintances: Jane Harty Abbott, Alice Carr, Angela Dowling, Dan O’Leary, Newell Turner Parr, and Sister Jude Walsh. For historical background, I was given many materials by the Georgia Historical Society, and by Mark MacDonald at the Historic Savannah Foundation. I am grateful to Dale and Lila Critz, the current owners of Katie Semmes’s home, for allowing me to visit; and for their hospitality, to Bobby Zarem, John and Ginger Duncan, Robert E. Jones, Walter and Connie Hart-ridge, and the Savannah College of Art and Design.
In each of many visits to Atlanta, I was shown extraordinary hospitality by the Emory University Professor of English Richard Rambuss and his partner, Charles O’Boyle, as well as by Virginia Spencer Carr. At Emory Special Collections, I received expert guidance to the Betty Hester letters, unsealed in 2007 after twenty years, from Director Steve Enniss, as well as from the O’Connor scholar and University Vice President and Secretary Rosemary Magee and University Archivist Virginia Cain, who led me on a tour of Emory University Hospital, where O’Connor was hospitalized in 1951. For background on Piedmont Hospital, where O’Connor was hospitalized in 1960, and again in 1964, I was given detailed information by the historian and archivist Diane Erdeljac. I was aided on many occasions by the Atlanta Historical Society, and for information on Peachtree Heights in the 1930s, I am indebted to Bill Bell. I was honored to be able to speak with two of O’Connor’s Atlanta first cousins, Dr. Peter Cline and Jack Tarleton.
All roads in O’Connor research lead to Milledgeville, where Flannery lived most of her years, and where the bulk of her papers are deposited. Most knowledgeable in all things having to do with O’Connor’s letters, manuscripts, and memorabilia is Nancy Davis-Bray, associate director for Special Collections at Georgia College and State University. My special thanks to the good-natured Marshall Bruce Gentry, professor of English at GSCU and editor of the Flannery O’Connor Review, for inviting me as keynote speaker at the 2006 “O’Connor and Other Georgia Writers” conference, and for publishing my talk in the journal in 2007; and to his predecessor, a walking repository of O’Connoriana, Sarah Gordon. For allowing me to remain as a guest in his rambling ranch house during stays that could go on for months, I am indebted to Dan Bauer, assistant professor of English; and for his friendship, to Michael Riley, associate professor of English. Robert J. Wilson III, professor of History, shared valuable historical information about Milledgeville, as did Craig Amason, executive director of the Andalusia Foundation, who facilitated, as well, my 2005 Travel and Leisure article, “House of Stories,” on the opening of the farm to the public. My introduction to Milledgeville was a lovely picnic with Louise Florencourt, executor of Regina O’Connor’s estate and cotrustee of the Mary Flannery O’Connor Charitable Trust, on the front porch of Andalusia. I was also a luncheon guest in Milledgeville of O’Connor’s friend and biographer William Sessions.
For memories of Mary Flannery O’Connor during her childhood years in Milledgeville, I relied on conversations with Charlotte Conn Ferris, Dr. Floride Gardner, Martha Marion Kingery, Elizabeth Shreve Ryan, Frances Powell Binion Sibley, and John Thornton. I twice visited O’Connor’s cousin Frances Florencourt at her home in Arlington, Massachusetts, where she shared clippings, photographs, and letters from the family archive; and I was pleased to be a guest speaker in March 2007 at her course on O’Connor at the Regis College Learning in Retirement program. I spoke, too, with her late brother-in-law, Dr. Robert Mann, husband of the late Margaret Florencourt, at his home in Lexington, Massachusetts. Many shared anecdotes about the adult O’Connor in Milledgeville: Dr. Zeb Burrell, Pete Dexter, Mary More Jones, Mary Dean Lee, Dr. Robert E. Lee, Kitty Martin, Alfred Matysiak, Sr., Catherine Morai, Dorrie Neligan, Carol Sirmans, Mary Barbara Tate, Mary Jo Thompson, and Margaret Uhler.
Most remarkable was the overwhelming response to a mailing to O’Connor’s fellow alumnae of the George State College for Women, through the Alumni Affairs Office; I received more than fifty replies. For their generous communications by either letter, telephone, or e-mail, I thank Virginia Wood Alexander, Louise Simmons Allen, Dr. Marion Barber, Irene Dysart Baugh, Merle Chason Bearden, Mary Elizabeth Anderson Bogle, Frances Foster Bowen, Catherine J. Boyce, Virginia B. Brannan, Anne Shipman Brennan, Nona Quinn Buntts, Dorothy Channell, Anna Logan Drvaric, Elizabeth Stokes Dunaway, Gertrude Ehr-lich, Charmet Garrett, Elizabeth Wansley Gazdick, Zell Barnes Grant, Katherine D. Groves, Sunny Hancock Hammond, Mary Ann Hamrick, Lou Ann Hardigne, Elizabeth Harrington, Mary Emma Henderson, Harriet T. Hendricks, Martha Johnson, Ann Fitzpatrick Klein, Helen Matthews Lewis, Ann Davis Lomax, Bee McCormack, Imogene McCue, Dr. Mary McEver, L. Leotus Morrison, Marion Peterman Page, Ana Pinkston Phillips, Jane Garrett Phillips, Frances Lane Poole, Frances Rackley, Jeanne Peterson Robinson, Peggy George Sammons, Carol Simpson, Bette Rhodes Smith, Jane Strozier Smith, Karen Owens Smith, Betty Spence, Marylee Kell Tillman, Elizabeth Williams Turner, Gladys Baldwin Wallace, Dorothy L. Warthen, Ophelia Page Wilkes, Aileen T. Williams, Jane Sparks Willingham, and Joan DeWitt Yoe.
Helping me to navigate the various manuscripts, archives, and records at the University of Iowa during my stay in Iowa City were Sidney F. Huttner, head of Special Collections; David McCartney, university archivist; Sarah Harris, registrar; and Margaret Lillard, Alumni Association records supervisor. At the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, I was greatly helped by its human memory bank, Connie Brothers; Marilynne Robinson, acting director in 2005, connected me with Norma Hodges, who met with me and shared memories of being in the Workshop with O’Connor. Most helpful in giving me a sense of the Workshop at the time, in a volley of e-mails, was James B. Hall. Others kindly agreeing to communicate with me were Eugene Brown, Charles Embree, Bernie Halperin, Dr. James R. McConkey, W. D. Snodgrass, Mary Mudge Wiatt, Mel Wolfson, and Robert R. Yackshaw. Barbara Tunnicliff Hamilton not only recalled memories of O’Connor at Currier House, but sent along photographs of her housemate. Surprise sources were the writer-photographer John Gruen, and his wife, the painter Jane Wilson, who had also been friends of the subject of my last biography, Frank O’Hara.
I would have been happy under any circumstances for the chance to spend two weeks at Yaddo on a 2005 summer residency, but especially so as I worked during the time on researching O’Connor’s own 1948–49 stay. I am thankful to the president of Yaddo, Elaina Richardson; and to the source of much archival information, Lesley M. Leduc, public affairs coordinator. For direction in finding my way through the Yaddo Records at the New York Public Library, I relied on the archivist Ben Alexander, who later sent me his dissertation, Yaddo: A Creative History, and Micki McGee, curator of the October 2008 Yaddo exhibition at the library. Sharing with me their memories of O’Connor at Yaddo were Frederick Morton and Jim Shannon, son of the late Jim and Nellie Shannon. Most incisive and illuminating about O’Connor at Yaddo and in Manhattan, as well about as her early writings and friendship with Robert Lowell, was the late Elizabeth Hardwick, whom I interviewed in her apartment in the fall of 2003. I wish to thank Saskia Hamilton, too, for advice in exploring Lowell’s correspondence.
My extensive afternoon-long interview and several subsequent phone conversations with the late Robert Giroux were enormously helpful, not only for his memories of O’Connor’s arrival in New York City in 1949, but for his perceptions about her writing and publishing throughout her lifetime. When in doubt, I found that I could turn to the transcript of his interview for wise and judicious opinions on many a topic. Janet August and Amy Atamian, the current owners of the Fitzgeralds’ hom
e at Seventy Acre Road, in Redding, Connecticut, showed great hospitality in allowing me to visit one Saturday afternoon in January 2007. They also introduced me to knowledgeable experts on the history of the area: Kay Abels, Ridgefield Historical Society; Brent Colley, Ridgefield online historian; Dan Cruson, Newton town historian; Lynn Hyson, reporter for the Redding Pilot; and Patty Miller Hancock, daughter of the previous resident, Virginia Miller.
For information pertaining to O’Connor’s most productive years after her return south I am indebted to several research institutions and individuals. Research Librarian David Smith at the New York Public Library was indefatigable, locating numerous articles and books and answering nearly weekly pleas for help. Other librarians, curators, and editors who contributed include Michael Carter, librarian at the Cloisters; Marvin J. Taylor, director, Fales Library and Special Collections, New York University; Stephen Crook, librarian, Berg Collection, New York Public Library; Sheri Young, archivist, National Book Foundation; David Bagnall, managing editor, Modern Language Association International Bibliography; Max Rudin, publisher, Library of America; Thomas P. Ford, reference assistant, Houghton Library, Harvard University; Margaret Sherry Rich, reference librarian and archivist, Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University Library; and Lynn Conway, Georgetown University archivist. I traveled to Lourdes, where I was helped by Agnès Baranger, Service Communication, Sanctuaires Notre-Dame de Lourdes; and to West Virginia University in Morgantown, West Virginia, where I was guided through the papers of Maryat Lee in the West Virginia Historical Manuscript and Archives Collection by Lori Hostuttler.
Among the most significant in bringing O’Connor to life, and providing memories and insights in interviews by phone and e-mail, as well as sharing unpublished correspondence, was Erik Langkjaer, now living with his wife, Mette, in Copenhagen. The word “gentleman” always springs to mind when I think of Erik. Others of O’Connor’s close friends, who helped color in the picture for me were certainly Louise Abbot, whom I met in her home in Louisville, Georgia; Ashley Brown; and Dr. Ted Spivey. Valuable personal insights were also provided in interviews by Robert Coles, Alfred Corn, Christopher Dickey, Richard Giannone, Leonard Mayhew, and Gabrielle Rolin. For his patient clarification of the medical complications of lupus, I am indebted to Michael D. Lockshin, MD, professor at the Joan and Sanford Weill College of Medicine of Cornell University. I appreciate Martha Asbury, Fran Belin, William French, and Donald Richie for sharing their memories of Maryat Lee. For his unpublished correspondence with Betty Hester, I thank Greg Johnson; and for their memories of Hester, Janet Rechtman and Judy McConnell. Other important assistance of many different kinds was given by Jean-Francois Anton, Neil Baldwin, Susan Balée, John Berendt, A. Scott Berg, Mark Bosco, S.J., Jean Cash, Michael Cunningham, Lisa E. Davis, PhD, Paul Elie, Bruce Fulton, Michael Gehl, Dr. Edwin Gleaves, Roger Harris, Edward Hirsch, Frances Kiernan, Gary Logue, Jon Jewett, Josh Milstein, Honor Moore, Jean Nathan, Georgia Newman, Christopher O’Hare, Padgett Powell, Patrick Samway, S.J., Michael Selleck, Ken Silverman, Gore Vidal, and Edmund White.
I could not have completed this project within six years without the support of a 2004 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in Biography; a 2007 National Endowment for the Humanities Fellowship, designated a “We the People Project,” for “promoting knowledge and understanding of American history and culture”; and a 2006 Furthermore Grant in Publishing, a program of the J. M. Kaplan Fund. I had the boon during the spring semester of 2006 of the assistance of Michael McAllister, a Columbia University School of the Arts Hertog Fellow, through the excellent program administered by Patricia O’Toole. I received steady support as well from the William Paterson University of New Jersey, where I am a professor of English, and where I was generously granted an academic leave for my 2004–2005 Guggenheim year and a sabbatical leave for the 2006–2007 academic year, as well as release time for research throughout the duration of the project. I especially wish to thank the librarians of the Cheng Library for their assistance in securing scores of articles and dissertations through interlibrary loan, and my department chair, Linda Hamalian, and colleague and Gertrude Stein scholar Edward Burns. A former student, Michael Ptaszek, contributed in countless ways while working during all of these years as my personal assistant. For advice and comments on a presentation of my work in progress, I thank fellow members of the Biography Seminar at New York University, funded by the Whiting Foundation.
I especially wish to thank my tireless agent, Joy Harris, for finding just the right home for this project. And my editor at Little, Brown, Pat Strachan, rightly legendary for her hands-on engagement, adroit use of the editor’s pen, and subtle guidance in a cool and reassuring tone; my own infatuation with O’Connor was more than matched by hers, as I often found her rereading stories for a second or third time to test out observations. This book could not exist in its present form without the help of my perceptive friend Barbara Heizer, who closely read each word, chapter by chapter, as I was writing, and gave sharp advice at every turn. The wise and urbane Joel Conarroe graduated from friend to literary saint in my estimation for his labor-intensive reading and comments on a first draft and galley pages. When I finally printed out the manuscript, my partner, Paul Raushenbush, the ultimate “good guy,” asked brightly, after years of daily discussions, “What will we talk about now?” I’m confident that we’ll find plenty of other topics to discuss, Paul, though nothing quite of the tenor of Flannery O’Connor.
Reprinted by permission of Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC: Excerpts from The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor. Copyright © 1971 by the Estate of Mary Flannery O’Connor. Excerpts from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally Fitzgerald. Copyright © 1979 by Regina O’Connor. Excerpts from “Introduction” by Flannery O’Connor from A Memoir of Mary Ann by the Dominican Nuns of Our Lady of Perpetual Help Home. “Introduction” copyright © 1961 by Flannery O’Connor. Copyright renewed 1989 by Regina O’Connor. Excerpts from Mystery and Manners by Flannery O’Connor, edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. Reprinted by permission of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company: Excerpt from “A Circle in the Fire” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, copyright 1948 by Flannery O’Connor and renewed 1976 by Mrs. Edward F. O’Connor. Excerpts from “A Late Encounter with the Enemy” and “The Life You Save May Be Your Own” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, copyright 1953 by Flannery O’Connor and renewed 1981 by Regina O’Connor. Excerpts from “The Displaced Person” and “A Temple of the Holy Ghost” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, copyright 1954 by Flannery O’Connor and renewed 1982 by Regina O’Connor. Excerpts from “The Artificial Nigger” and “Good Country People” in A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories, copyright © 1955 by Flannery O’Connor and renewed 1983 by Regina O’Connor.
Notes
ABBREVIATIONS
PUBLISHED PRIMARY WORKS
CC Correspondence of Flannery O’Connor and the Brainard Cheneys. Edited by C. Ralph Stephens. Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi, 1986.
Con Conversations with Flannery O’Connor. Edited by Rosemary M. Magee. Jackson and London: University Press of Mississippi, 1986.
CW O’Connor: Collected Works. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald. New York: Library of America, 1988.
HB The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Edited by Sally Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1979.
MM Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose. Edited by Sally and Robert Fitzgerald. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.
PG The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews. Compiled by Leo J. Zuber and edited by Carter W. Martin. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1983.
COLLECTIONS
Emory Flannery O’Connor Collection, Robert W. Woodruff Library, Emory University, Atlanta.
FSG “Farrar, Straus & Giroux Inc. Records,” New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
Prince- Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Firestone Library, Prince tonton University.
UI Records of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, Special Collections, University of Iowa.
UNC “Dorrance Papers,” Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina Library, Chapel Hill.
Yaddo “Yaddo Records.” Manuscripts and Archives Division, New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations.
EPIGRAPH
ix “As for biographies”: FOC to Betty Hester, July 5, 1958, HB, 290–91.
PROLOGUE: WALKING BACKWARD
3 “marked me for life”: FOC, “The King of the Birds,” CW, 832. Hilton Als retells the story as an example of “the first approval of her obsession with the grotesque” in “This Lonesome Place,” The New Yorker (January 29, 2001): 83
3 “the New Yorker”: “Notes,” CW, 1270.
3 “Miss Katie”: Loretta Feuger Hoynes, “We Remember Mary Flannery” panel, O’Connor Childhood Home, Savannah, Ga., November 2, 1990.
3–4 “Her fame had spread”: CW, 832. A slew of such new items, edging on tall tales, dotted the newspapers of the day, including the New York Times, which ran a piece titled “Advent of Spring in Georgia, Weird Nature Tales,” dateline “Savannah,” about a chicken born to a farmer in Lee County, Georgia, with four legs that could “walk forward or backward”: New York Times (May 30, 1930): E2.
4 “frizzled”: Sally Fitzgerald, “Chronology,” CW, 1238.
4 “the Pathé man”: CW, 832.
4 “Odd fowl walks”: “Unique Chicken Goes in Reverse,” Pathe News Reel Series, 1931, GCSU.
5 “celebrity”: FOC to Betty Hester, December 15, 1955, HB, 126.
5 “From that day”: CW, 832.
6 “Now there are”: Robert Lowell to Elizabeth Bishop, October 1, 1948, The Letters of Robert Lowell, edited by Saskia Hamilton (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005), 111.