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

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

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1988

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Special Award

"I have come to think that the true likeness of Flannery O'Connor will be painted by herself, a self-portrait in words, to be found in her letters . . . There she stands, a phoenix risen from her own words: calm, slow, funny, courteous, both modest and very sure of herself, intense, sharply penetrating, devout but never pietistic, downright, occasionally fierce, and honest in a way that restores honor to the word."—Sally Fitzgerald, from the Introduction

Editorial Reviews

Review

"To compare her with the great letter writers in our language may seem presumptuous and would have elicited from her one of her famous steely glances, but Byron, Keats, Lawrence, Wilde and Joyce come irresistibly to mind: correspondence that gleams with consciousness."

--The New York Times

 

"These hundreds of letters give O'Connor's tough, funny, careful personality to us more distinctly and movingly than any biography probably would... Remarkable and inspiring."

--Kirkus Reviews

About the Author

Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. When she died at the age of thirty-nine, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers. O’Connor wrote two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and two story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). Her Complete Stories, published posthumously in 1972, won the National Book Award that year, and in a 2009 online poll it was voted as the best book to have won the award in the contest’s 60-year history. Her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969). In 1988 the Library of America published her Collected Works; she was the first postwar writer to be so honored. O’Connor was educated at the Georgia State College for Women, studied writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and wrote much of Wise Blood at the Yaddo artists’ colony in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on her family’s ancestral farm, Andalusia, outside Milledgeville, Georgia.

Product Details

• Paperback: 624 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; First Edition edition (August 1, 1988)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374521042
• ISBN-13: 978-0374521042
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (25 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #67,406 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.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 48 people found the following review helpful

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

By A Customer

Format: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.

34 of 34 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Dear Reader February 24, 2004

By A Customer

Format: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.

32 of 33 people found the following review helpful

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

By Stephen E. Adams

Format: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.