“Far Beyond the House and Chicken Yard“

A Review of
Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor.
by Brad Gooch.

By Chris Smith.

Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor.
Brad Gooch.
Hardcover: Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
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A recent viral internet post has declared Flannery O’Connor among its list of “Stuff Christian Hipsters Like.”  While I can understand why such Christian Hipsters would be attracted to her dark, grotesque stories of sin and redemption, I am more convinced than ever – after reading Flannery, Brad Gooch’s authoritative new biography – that there is little in Flannery herself that such trendy folks would find “hip.”  A sheltered, southern woman from an aristocratic family, with “medieval” sensibilities and a cultural racism (334) befitting her situation in mid-twentieth century Georgia, she hardly fits the bill.  Gooch, however, spins an engaging narrative that is sure to draw in all its readers –   hipsters or not.

            The product of Gooch’s lifelong “infatuation” with Ms. O’Connor’s work and five years of research and writing, Flannery contradicts O’Connor’s opinion that a compelling biography of her life would never be written “because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.”  Gooch’s framework is the standard story of O’Connor’s life, developed largely from her autobiography-in-letters, The Habit of Being. Continue Reading…