Flannery’s Face and Legs
Nightstand this week is about Flannery O’Connor. When it seemed there might be room for a roomier, moodier O’Connor article in the current book section, the brilliant illustrator Tra Selhtrow was hired to do a drawing, but then my O’Connor stuff got shoved over into Nightstand, which doesn’t get an illustration. But Selhtrow’s awesome, inky drawing of O’Connor can be seen here.
Another thing about this week’s column: It neglects to mention that the letter quoted is from The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O’Connor. Here’s the picture on the back:
O’Connor raised peacocks and spent most of her adult life battling illness—she died of lupus at the age of 39, “at the height of her powers,” her author bios usually read. Thus, the crutches. A letter of hers dated September 24, 1955 begins, “I am learning to walk on crutches and I feel like a large stiff anthropoid ape…” In the middle of the letter she interrupts herself: “However, my crutches are my complete obsession right now. I have never used such before and I am to be on them for a year or two. They change the tempo of everything. I no longer am going to cross the room without making a major decision to do it.” And in closing, a page later, she writes, “I must be off on my two aluminum legs.”
I'm reading a collectin of her short stories right now. It's been a long time since I've been so completely engrossed and blown away by a book.
Flannery O'Connor: I heart you.