Monday, July 11, 2011
Books / Events A Good Hard Look at Flannery O'Connor
Posted by Andrew Alexander on Mon, Jul 11, 2011 at 1:49 PM
- Nicola Dove
- Ann Napolitano
It's not just modesty or self-deprecation that makes Napolitano imagine such a strong negative reaction from O'Connor. Napolitano spent several years researching and getting inside the head of the exceedingly private, plain-spoken, sardonic Georgia writer for her new novel in which O'Connor appears as a main character. A Good Hard Look tells the story of Melvin Whiteson, a wealthy New Yorker who marries a woman from Milledgeville, Georgia. His rather aimless, dissatisfied life is changed when he encounters O'Connor, who in life, as in her work, pulls no punches.
O'Connor lived in Milledgeville with her mother, Regina. Her Southern gothic short stories and novels, with their themes of violence, grace and redemption earned her a world-wide following and placed her firmly in the pantheon of the 20th century's great writers. She died from complications from lupus in 1964 at the age of 39.
“It just terrified me to have her in it,” says Napolitano about the initial decision to have her fictional creation Whiteson meet the historical O'Connor. But one day as Napolitano was complaining to her husband about the difficulties she was having with an early draft, her eyes fell on a copy of The Habit of Being, the collection of Flannery's letters she'd read in college 10 years earlier, sitting on the bookshelf. “This thought just popped into my head that Flannery was supposed to be in the novel. I was horrified. I don't just go around having 'epiphanies,'" says Napolitano. "I never set out to write historical fiction. I never planned to incorporate a real person. None of these things were artistic aspirations of mine. But the idea just stuck.”
Napolitano says she'd always felt a special affinity with O'Connor, whose diagnosis with lupus at 26 caused her to put all her remaining time and energy into her body of work. At the time when Napolitano was first reading O'Connor's letters as a senior in college, she was diagnosed with Epstein-Barr virus, which attacks the immune system and plagued her for three years. The diagnosis made her focus with more intensity on her then-vague aspirations to be a writer and made O'Connor an especially inspiring figure.
“She was so brave and she just lived life to the fullest within her capacity,” says Napolitano. “She really created a spine for the novel. Everyone else in the book has to stand in front of her fire.”
Ann Napolitano will read from her new novel A Good Hard Look at the First Baptist Church in Decatur on Tues., July 12, at 7 p.m. Napolitano will also do readings at Andalusia, O'Connor's home in Milledgeville, on Wed., July 13, at 7 p.m., and at O'Connor's childhood home in Savannah on Thurs., July 14, at 7 p.m.
Latest in Fresh Loaf
-
Drawing dance at the Decatur Arts Festival
CORE, Beacon highlight dance offerings
-
Paul Luna isn't finished with PARKatlanta 1
Chef files another lawsuit claiming private parking-enforcement deal violates city's charter
-
That poor baby beluga died 4
Experts say beluga deaths are unavoidable, but deaths in captivity are
- More »
More by Author
-
Veruca Salt sings out in opera version of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"
Charlie and the gang search for their golden tickets
-
Creativity flows for "Women and Water" event at Emory
Series examines the intersection of water and human behavior
- More »
Comments (0)