Jessica Hooten Wilson

How interesting would it be to read an incomplete partial manuscript by an author who had written only two novels and a couple of collections of short stories? That's the first thought that came into my mind when considering this book. But I should have been less skeptical since it turned out to be both very interesting and quite an enjoyable read.
In contrast to my skepticism of reading a partial manuscript, as an ex-Catholic I am still somewhat intrigued by some of the more steadfast Catholics authors like Walker Percy, Graham Green and O'Connor whose fiction reflects the stresses and tension between their religious ideology and their more secularist view of the world. Combine that with O'Connor's southern cultural environment, along with the racial turmoil of the 1950s and 60s that permeated that environment, and you can end up with literary mush rather than insightful literary writing. Fortunately this work reflects aspects of the latter rather than the former.
Jessica Horton Wilson has done an excellent job of illuminating O'Connor's literary genius and reflecting how her writing was intimately tied to her short and very limited lifestyle. You learn as much about Flannery as a person and writer as you do about what this fragmentary manuscript might have turned into if O'Connor's early illness and death had not been such a determinative force.
This study is also complemented by 7 excellent linoleum cut prints by Steve Prince an exceptionally gifted young artist. Each of the illustrations very vividly captures a powerful and insightful scene in the manuscript. This book is an excellent addition to any Flannery O'Connor or literary collection.… (altro)

As someone who likes Flannery O'Connor's writing, I was glad to win this book of her unfinished third novel, Why Do the Heathen Rage? Unfortunately, because it was unfinished, and unorganized, we are given snippets of the fragments. I enjoyed the snippets, but I wish the author, Jessica Hooten Wilson, had told us how much of the manuscript was given to us in her book. I'm not sure, as I'm sure Wilson wasn't sure, and O'Connor wasn't sure, how this story would have unfolded, but Wilson does not really elaborate on how she organized the fragments given to us, and I would have liked more information on the manuscripts themselves, and if there was any chronological order to them. Wilson does mention that several parts of the manuscript were rewritten, however. The fragments whetted my appetite and wish that O'Connor had been able to finish this work. I did not like Wilson's attempt to finish the story in a way that she felt it might work out, especially using an excerpt from another of O'Connor's works, The Violent Bear It Away; I doubt O'Connor would have repeated a scene from another novel of hers, but would have tried for something different. Instead, I would have just liked, instead, all the parts of the manuscript that hadn't been presented earlier in the novel to be presented to us in an appendix (unless all parts had already been presented--Wilson doesn't make clear how much of the unfinished novel she has provided us with). I'm not sure, either, of Wilson's conclusions that O'Connor didn't know how to finish this novel because she wasn't able to get into the perspective of black characters. I'm not sure if that was O'Connor's intention, anyway. O'Connor had her specific audience in mind, which seems to be white people who could tend to be racist, etc., and so her intent was to change white people's views--but not necessarily about social issues, but, rather, spiritual perspectives. I did like Wilson's ending discussion of Mrs. Turpin and how we as humans have both "heathen" and "saint", both "hog" and "human." This is a good addition to the O'Connor canon, but I wish Wilson had provided more context about the manuscripts themselves and O'Connor's writing than her own comments about them.… (altro)