I just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. Jessica Hooten Wilson did an extraordinary job researching the possible connections in Flannery's life and other works that may have taken shape in this unpublished novel. I not only fully enjoyed the unfinished work, but I also learned so much about Flannery life and times. 100% recommend.

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. ( )

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.

Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress, by Jessica Hooten Wilson, is a fascinating look at this unfinished work through the lens of what was going on both in the world at large and in O'Connor's life at the time.

I saw a phrase in some marketing material that really sums up what the book is very well: a nonfiction narrative of O'Connor's unfinished novel. I like this description a lot. Between the scenes and segments of what would have been the novel we get a running account of what was happening, or had happened in the past, that could have been a source or an inspiration or both. The segments from O'Connor more than likely would have gone through many additional rewrites and edits, but that doesn't matter within the context of this book. O'Connor didn't live long enough to make those changes, what we have is what she had put down by her death, and the commentary by Hooten Wilson covers what had happened until that point.

I have two main takeaways from the book, or maybe one takeaway and one desire. Anyway, the big thing, in addition to gaining a better insight into a great writer's process and life, is that we see O'Connor grappling not simply with writing a story she would be willing to share but also grappling with her own demons. The biggest one that has gotten a lot of attention in recent years has to do with whether or not she was a racist, as if there can be a simple answer to that question about anyone raised in the United States. Even the least racist among us (I am of the belief that there isn't, presently, such a thing as a completely non-racist person) has to be aware of the subtle things that don't seem racist from one perspective but certainly does from another. Making adjustments to ourselves, becoming better people, is a process, and that includes issues of race. Did O'Connor have internal struggles with what she believed to be right versus how she lived in the south of her time? Did she choose to use her writing to both wrestle with it and help others see that how we were (and unfortunately still are) as a society is not simply wrong but foolish? These kinds of questions are explored in looking at the characters in not only this novel but her previous work as well. And, of course, her interactions, in person and through correspondence, with other people. Most of us will find some comments offensive, and I think the later O'Connor found some of her younger ideas to be offensive as well, or at least acknowledged their wrongness.

My other takeaway/desire is more about what the book did than about O'Connor specifically. I would enjoy books that did similar work on completed novels. That looked at various drafts, what specifically was going on and give some inkling into what the writer was working through, both literarily and personally. I know that is part of what we do when we teach texts from the past, but we tend to use broad strokes designed more to contextualize a work within its time and place. I would like more works that analyze specifically what that writer was working through while working on a novel. I think this would be especially interesting for a writer's late works, especially if there seemed to be some kind of turn or departure from what they did previously. I know I am mostly talking about simply a different degree of what we try to do already, but in the instances where there is enough in the archives, I think it might offer a better, and more compassionate, understanding of that writer.

Okay, I went on a bit much about something a little off topic, but this book makes the reader consider things from several perspectives, showing positives and negatives without making excuses, though offering some explanations. A book that makes you think is, by my standards, a success.

Reviewed from a copy made available by the publisher via NetGalley. ( )