Flannery O’Connor

Writer Carlene Bauer and Karen Wright Marsh explore the many sides of Flannery O’Connor.

The American author, Flannery O’Connor (1925-1964) insisted that she was not a mystic and did not lead a holy life---yet faith infuses her fiction, letters, and private journals, tracing themes of sin and grace, fall and redemption, and the ultimate reality: God revealed in the Incarnation. What do we make of this unexpected saint?

Guest Carlene Bauer is the author of a memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, and a novel called Frances and Bernard, inspired by the lives of Flannery O'Connor and Robert Lowell.  Her work has appeared in The New York Times, Elle, The Los Angeles Review of Books, n + 1, and The Virginia Quarterly Review.

To learn more Karen recommends:

Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)

The Complete Stories of Flannery O’Connor (FSG)

The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor

“This Lonesome Place: Flannery O’Connor on Race and Religion in the Unreconstructed South” by Hilton Als  www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/01/29/this-lonesome-place

“On Flannery O’Connor and Race: an Essay by Amy Alznauer bittersoutherner.com/southern-perspective/2020/on-flannery-o-connor-and-race-a-response-to-paul-elie-new-yorker

Benny Andrews illustrations: wingatestudio.com/project/benny-andrews

Carlene Bauer’s books:

Not That Kind of Girl: A Memoir

Frances and Bernard

Listen to an interview about Frances and Bernard at www.wnyc.org/people/carlene-bauer/


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