Flannery O'Connor

This study explores the dualities that inform the entire body of Flannery O'Connor's fiction. From the almost unredeemable world of Wise Blood to the climactic moments of revelation that infuse The Violent Bear It Away and Everything That Rises Must Converge, O'Connor's novels and stories wrestle with extremes of faith and reason, acceptance and revolt; they arch between cool narrative and explosive action, between a sacramental vision and a primary intuition of reality.

An impressive piece of scholarship, with an abundance of informative notes. Asals' assertions are invariably provocative, and the essentially severe view of O'Connor is a valuable corrective to the sentimentalized Christian humanist theory.-- "American Literature", Asals's study is an investigation of the dynamics of O'Connor's imagination, and as such it is one of the most complex, challenging, and intellectually exciting studies of her work yet to appear. . . . A superb and penetrating analysis.-- "Flannery O'Connor Bulletin", The best book yet written on Flannery O'Connor, not only scholarly, useful, and intelligent, but written with a clarity and grace rare in critical prose. It is an impressive achievement.-- "Modern Fiction Studies", To my taste, the most impressive book [of O'Connor criticism] published to date. . . . Asals is especially helpful because, unlike the horde of critics who expound a static deductive vision on O'Connor's part, he traces her growth toward the relative serenity of her later work.-- "New York Review of Books"

Frederick Asals is a professor of English at New College, University of Toronto.Michael McCurdy (1942-2016) was an internationally known illustrator and designer whose work has appeared in the books of over thirty publishers and in such magazines as the New Yorker, Esquire, and Field and Stream. He was a longtime resident of Great Barrington, Massachusetts.