The Letters of Flannery O'Connor: The Habit of Being [Hardcover]

Flannery O'Connor (Author), Sally Fitzgerald (Editor)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 617 pages
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux (January 1979)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374167699
• ISBN-13: 978-0374167691
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #347,705 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925, the only child of Catholic parents. In 1945 she enrolled at the Georgia State College for Women. After earning her degree she continued her studies on the University of Iowa's writing program, and her first published story, 'The Geranium', was written while she was still a student. Her writing is best-known for its explorations of religious themes and southern racial issues, and for combining the comic with the tragic. After university, she moved to New York where she continued to write. In 1952 she learned that she was dying of lupus, a disease which had afflicted her father. For the rest of her life, she and her mother lived on the family dairy farm, Andalusia, outside Millidgeville, Georgia. For pleasure she raised peacocks, pheasants, swans, geese, chickens and Muscovy ducks. She was a good amateur painter. She died in the summer of 1964.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

40 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Her Own Words--The Best Words, July 11, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (Paperback)

THE HABIT OF BEING is required reading for any Flannery O'Connor fan. Nobody can explain Flannery like Flannery. Through her letters the reader has an immediate connection to the writer and the woman, and that connection made me regret even more that I did not know her personally. Sally Fitzgerald includes letters that show Flannery's human side, her cranky side, her funny side, even her arrogant side. I read the letters before the identity of A was revealed, and I was intrigued. I went back and read them again after that identify was made public, and I'm even more intrigued. To understand fully what Flannery was attempting in her stories, one needs to read the letters. To understand fully what she was attempting in her life, one needs to read the letters. No satisfactory biography has been written about Flannery O'Connor, but I'm not sure that one is necessary when we have at least a start at an autobiography with THE HABIT OF BEING.

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dear Reader, February 24, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (Paperback)

Flannery wrote under a death sentence, and it seems inescapable that she expected - or at least hoped and imagined - that these letters would be published. Thus, they are written to you, dear reader, as much as to anyone. And they are superb. This is Flannery at her best. If you, like so many, are enthralled by her works, you will find this book essential. If you suspect that some of the self-appointed and so-called experts on her work could benefit from a strong laxative and are curious to find out what she herself really had in mind in her various stories, you will find this book immensely rewarding. And if you imagine that you might enjoy the musings of a soul whose wisdom, character, and intellect were each exceptional, you will find this book compelling.

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Humor, Faith, and Work, September 14, 2005

By 

Stephen E. Adams "cloudislands.com" (Lopez Island, WA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor (Paperback)

Flannery O'Connor's correspondence is a fine testimony to humor, faith, and work in the life of a fascinating and absolutely unswerving human being. As she says in a letter to Andrew Lytle from this collection, the fact that she was a Catholic kept her from being a regional writer and the fact that she was a Southerner kept her from being a Catholic writer. If you want the best tutorial you're apt to ever read on how to write fiction, forget the usual "Write a Novel in 30 Days" garbage and get a copy of THE HABIT OF BEING. She'll also teach you quite a bit about living.