Following Flannery O`Connor`s spiritual journey in The Abbess of

Thursday, November 5, 2009
Feature
Southern Cross, Page 5
Following Flannery O’Connor’s spiritual journey in
The Abbess of Andalusia
N
one of my usual late-night reading was available. All I had was a review copy of The Abbess of
Andalusia by Lorraine V. Murray (Saint Benedict Press, 2009). Although O’Connor’s works—
bizarre, thought-provoking, humorous—might have kept me awake, a book with the title of The
Abbess of Andalusia threatened to be a “dozer”, but not to worry.
Mary Flannery O’Connor, whose spiriant peacocks that strutted about the property,
tual travels are chronicled in The Abbess of
O’Connor also perfected the twisted, allegorical
Andalusia, entered this world on March 25,
works for which she would be remembered.
1925. The only child of Edward and Regina
It was also at Andalusia that the increasing
Cline O’Connor, she was born in Savannah and
debility and fatigue caused by lupus perfected
attended local Catholic schools. A perky girl
in O’Connor—a devout Catholic—an accepwho taught her pet chicken to walk backwards,
tance of her affliction, although she neither
as recorded by Pathé News, she little realized
welcomed it nor gave in to it. Her letters to
that a disease named lupus would be her
close friends incrementally reveal her sufinheritance as well as a wealth of talent.
fering and her acknowledgement of it as
When a new job took Edward
her personal Way of the Cross. Early
O’Connor to Atlanta, Flannery and her
on, she had decided she didn’t want to
mother accompanied him. Neither liked
live in Georgia. That dream died with
the city. Flannery and Regina Cline
the onset of lupus. Diagnosed with a
O’Connor settled in Milledgeville, the
degenerative hip bone, she accepted havCline family’s ancestral home. Edward
ing to use a cane (and, later, crutches)
Rita H. DeLorme as gracefully and humorously as she
O’Connor commuted from Atlanta
on weekends until he became ill with
might have accepted being given a set
lupus and rejoined his family in Milledgeville.
of wings. When medications made eating difDaughter Flannery was in her teens when her
ficult or caused her face to become round and
father died in 1941. She went on to attend
her hair to fall out, O’Connor joked about it.
Peabody High School and to graduate in 1945
She wrote her way through these trials, beginfrom Georgia State College for Women (now
ning and ending each day with prayer, often
Georgia College and State University), majorrelying on readings from A Short Breviary for
ing in social science.
the Religious and the Laity. O’Connor wrote
A casual artist, but a better writer, O’Connor
in the mornings (her best time of day energywon a scholarship to the State University
wise). She read works by contemporary and
of Iowa where she enrolled in the Writers’
earlier theologians in a bedroom as spare as the
Workshop. After achieving a Master of Fine
cell of a religious. This austere regime paid off.
Arts degree in 1947, she won entrée to the
Her novel, Wise Blood, was published in 1952.
Yaddo artists’ colony in New York. O’Connor
Then came a book of short fiction, A Good
lived in New York City for a time, later staying
Man is Hard to Find and other Stories (1955).
in Connecticut in a garage apartment owned by
Another novel, The Violent Bear It Away, was
friends, Robert and Sally Fitzgerald. In 1951,
published in 1960. A collection of short stories,
when disseminated lupus—the O’Connor famEverything That Rises Must Converge, was
ily demon—caught up with her, she returned
published posthumously in 1965. to Milledgeville to live with her mother on the
Between times, Flannery O’Connor wrote
Cline family’s farm, “Andalusia.”
book reviews for The Bulletin of the Catholic
Besides her writing, O’Connor’s life in this
Laymen’s Association of Georgia and its
setting included lecturing widely at colleges
successor, the Southern Cross—not for The
and conducting a prolific correspondence with
Georgia Bulletin, as mentioned in The Abbess
friends, including Sally Fitzgerald. This corof Andalusia. O’Connor was successively, as
respondence forms the backbone of The Abbess
diocesan logistics changed, a member of the
of Andalusia. Ill or not, Flannery O’Connor
Catholic Diocese of Savannah, the Diocese of
functioned as advisor for friends who wrote
Savannah-Atlanta and the Diocese/Archdiocese
her and for writers wanting advice. While conof Atlanta. In 1964, her death from lupusvalescing at Andalusia and raising flamboyrelated problems deprived the literary world of
TV Mass
Schedule
Augusta
Sunday, 10:00 a.m. WAGT-TV
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Saturday, 6:00 p.m. Cable 7
Sunday, 5:30 a.m. WTOC-TV
The cover of The Abbess of Andalusia.
a writer whose fictional characters found grace
in the grotesque even as O’Connor found it in
her suffering.
Lacking the genius, grace and perceptiveness of a Flannery O’Connor, I’ve read her
short stories but can’t go the distance with her
novels. Years ago, The Habit of Being by her
friend, Sally Fitzgerald, helped me appreciate
Flannery O’Connor through her letters. The
Abbess of Andalusia, Flannery O’Connor’s
Spiritual Journey, has succeeded in doing the
same thing, turning out to be not a “dozer”, but
a “dazzler”, as I’ve read it with pleasure every
night. Columnist Rita H. DeLorme
is a volunteer in the Diocesan
Archives. She can be reached
at [email protected].