12/19/49

Dear S&R

I think the *Face of the Saints* is a wonderful book and thank you and H&B for it and wish you all a happy Christmas. My mother said, "My, what a gruesome book," and then after reflecting she said, "I want you to take your radio back, Mary Flannery." She can't get over the fact that Hugh is a girl. I hope Hugh is fine now after her fall.

Both Cal and Elizabeth came to the station and left me more depressed than I have been about any phase of the thing. Cal was there first and we had to wait about five minutes for Elizabeth. There was nothing to say--we talked about Iowa a little but it was all so awkward that I might have been talking to him for the first time. Elizabeth made it easier but not much and between them they had an ordeal keeping up the chatter until time for the train; then the train was two hours late so they had to keep trying for another hour and a half.

I talked to Elizabeth by herself a few times when Cal would go to ask Mary about my train and she said going to Iowa meant a great deal to him; he was afraid he wouldn't get the job; Engle wants him but the rest of the faculty are suspicious; Engle asked for a letter from his doctor and from Ransom etc; if he doesn't get the job he will feel he's not good for anything. I amend my views on it, somewhat. They asked me to spend the night with them when I come through again which, if I intended to take them up on it, would be adequate penance for them for their sins and mine. I felt that to mention the church would have been wrong; from me and at that time. They will probably leave for Iowa the middle of January and I hope Robt gets to talk to Cal before that.

Louis says a GE mixmaster would be 23.95 (or near that) wholesale plus the shipping. He will be glad to send you one if you want it.

I won't know for a few days whether my appendix will stay in or not. If it does, I will have to go to some teas and a luncheon and a wedding and reception and to visit my 83 yr old cousin so I'm not much opposed to having it out; but I will let you know what day I will be back.

Yours,

PS Miss Fenwick said Mr. Selby said he understood somebody was supporting me in the country for *six* months. ? The most interesting rumor I've heard.

PRESERVATION PHOTOCOPY: ORIGINAL MATERIAL RESTRICTED

Wednesday

Dear S&R

We were mighty relieved to get your wire and know that Peter Michael *am* Lucifer Augustin was here. My mother concedes that since you already have two girls, it's all right for this one to be a boy. The names certainly are getting grander and grander though. If you call next year's much under Holy Trinity Fitzgerald he'll think you ain't doing right by him. I want to know is this one ancient and thin like Benedict was or is he pretty. My main reflection on your children is that I would like to see them again. If I am still all right by August, would you all have room for me? Don't hesitate to say no if you won't. One scientist days there's no worse climate for arthritis than Milledgeville, and that unless I'm going to Florida *une* place is as good as another. I think I would rather be slightly bent somewhere else than straight in Florida; however, as a matter of duty I think I'll apply for a job at the University at Tallahassee for next year. There ain't much chance of my getting it, especially applying this late.

I have been learning to drive, but it ain't the joy of my life. I've put Regina in the ditch once.

DEAN S. PADEN, PRESIDENT
W W. McMANUS, VICE PRES. & GEN. MGR.
J N HADDOCK, JR., VICE PRESIDENT

L. C. SMITH, FIRST ASST. VICE PRES.
J. B. HUTCHINGS, ASST. VICE PRES.
JOHN L. WATSON, TREASURER

ELIZABETH E. CHASE, SECRETARY
L. M. JOHNS, ASST. SECRETARY

KING HARDWARE CO.

WHOLESALE HARDWARE

490-510 MARIETTA STREET, N.W.

ATLANTA, GEORGIA

August 4, 1951

Dear S&R,

Regina & I are at the farm spending a few weeks after Emery for me to rest myself. I don't do much but am trying to finish the book and get it out of the house again. I have it mostly worked out except the end. The one I got don't seem right to me. Caroline said to get it off the ground but being full of ACTH, I aint at all certain where that is or where I got it. When I finally send it to Giroux, can you all and her look at it via the mails, H-B's copy and let me hear. I won't be able to get up there for a good year or maybe two. She certainly was good to send you all that comment on it and I am glad he is coming on with such as he is coming on with.

I can feature those three in Byzantiam. Giroux is sending me the M of the K, which I ain't going to disturb my limited critical juice on.

Bloomington sounded fine and Aunt Agnes trying. Where does she go next? I hope the Bleekers haven't run away with her savings again.

Let us hear when you can.

MEMBERS { NATIONAL WHOLESALE HARDWARE ASSOCIATION
SOUTHERN HARDWARE JOBBERS ASSOCIATION

Milledgeville

25 february 57

Dear Robt,

The invitation sounds fine but I don't know if such a talk is within my powers or not. Will this mostly be a student audience? I can only talk about the writing of fiction as I feel it in my bones--not about Literature or Art or such. I would be much obliged for a little more information. Would something about the problems that confront the fiction as a Catholic be in order? Or something about the grotesque in fiction? Or what? I am innocent of theory and all my talks have been to idiot audiences. I am sure these people at ND know more than I do and there's no use my spending a half hour of their time and their hundred bucks belaboring the obvious. Let me know because I would like to come, but not under any false pretences.

I am going to make a talk on April 1 at a big Presbyterian girl's college, last fall I made one at a big Methodist girl's college. I am also very hot at talking to Baptists. But I have never talked at no Catholic college, or to people for whom the obvious wasn't news.

Maybe if I come, you can come back and spend at least a part of yr 10 days in Georgia. You could get a plane to NY from Atlanta.

I am glad the kidney stone is over. I remember my father had one and he was not amused either.

Let me know what is expected about this talk and if I feel I can give it, I will be pleased to come. The enclosed thing is not a speech but an article that Fr. Gardiner asked me to write for America and has not yet said if he is going to take or not. This is written for a general audience, would it be too elementary for the audience I would be supposed to talk to there? This would just give me some idea. I wouldn't use this.

I'm glad you've seen John Lynch. I thought he had five children. I don't think you arrive in ND until you have seven.

Cheers,

Milledgeville

25 february 57

Dear Robt,

The invitation sounds fine but I don't know if such a talk is within my powers or not. Will this mostly be a student audience? I can only talk about the writing of fiction as I feel it in my bones--not about Literature or Art or such. I would be much obliged for a little more information. Would something about the problems that confront the fiction of a Catholic be in order? Or something about the grotesque in fiction? Or what? I am innocent of theory and all my talks have been to idiot audiences. I am sure these people at ND know more than I do and there's no use my spending a half hour of their time and their hundred bucks belaboring the obvious. Let me know because I would like to come, but not under any false pretences.

Milledgeville

5 March 57

Dear Robt,

I will come and with pleasure. Just so I am not expected to
be W. K. Wimsatt, Jr. or somebody.

I have looked the schedule over and the only flight I can make
to Chicago, gets there at 1:55 PM and there is a 25 minute connection
with the plane to South Bend, which I know very well I could not make
as it takes me in my present state 25 minutes to get off one of the
things. If you mean you could meet me in Chicago at the airport, that
would be fine, but I don't want to put you out. Let me know if you can
before I order off after the ticket. It doesn't make any difference
how late in the day you got to Chicago as I wouldn't mind waiting. I
have a cousin there who could possibly come to the airport and keep me
company.

Going back I can leave South Bend Tuesday at 7 in the morning, have an hours time to change in Indianapolis and get to Atlanta at 12; 30, but going up you have to go through Chicago.

I had a wild letter from the Cheneys, directed to me and somebody
named Tommie, whom I gather they are going to see there. They wanted
me to come to Nashville and fly to South Bend with them Friday, the 12th,
but I think that would be too strenuous a trip for me. I treat myself
like an old lady, hoping I'll thereby live to be one.

The displaced person leaves the premises Thursday, having found
himself a job that pays more; and a family of Parkers are supposed to
move in and I think they are going to be of more use to me than to
my parent. Mr. Parker has a wife and two children and a mother and
daddy. The daddy is named Buster and according to Mr. Parker, "There
ain't a thang wrong with daddy but two thangs, hert trouble and asmer."
Buster is separated from Mr. Parker's mother and she is separated from her second husband too, who before she
left him, hit her so hard in the stomach that she had to be carried to
the hospital. Mr. Parker talked to him about this and told him that if
he did it again, he would get two or three others and they would come
and lynch him. Regina said she didn't really reckoned he meant that
and Mr. Parker said well yes he did, that he couldn't stand no man to
pick on a woman for no matter how strong a woman was, she was no match
for a man. So we are hoping at least to be adequately protected. The
only other applicant for the job was a Mr. Herbert James. He had four
children and said his wife had a "floatin nerve." Regina decided she
couldn't stand that. I intend to write a story called "The Floating
Nerve."

I had a note from John Lynch reinforcing the invitation, which
was very nice of him.

We still hope you'll consider coming to see us.

Milledgeville

27 March 57

Dear Robt,

I have finally succeeded in wresting the required tickets out of
the airlines. Doing it from here is like K. contacting the Castle but
anyway I have got an Eastern Flight 100 that gets to Chicago at 1:55 PM
and a Trans-World 424 that leaves there at 3:15. I didn't realize that
you would be flying over there and back just to get me. I thought it
would be a matter of getting a train or something. Anyway, I ought to
be able to manage this by myself. I told my mother I was going to write
you not to meet me in Chicago as this was too much trouble and expense
for you. She said: don't you do anything of the kind as I feel much
better about it knowing he will meet you. She thinks I am physically
as well as mentally incompetent now. But me, I am sure I can make it
and don't want you to go to this trouble. Just send me your telephone
number and if anything happens I will call you up to come to the rescue.
My Chicago cousin was badly burned last Saturday and is in the hospital
so she won't do me any good for rescue purposes.

His reverence Fr. Gardiner used the piece in the March 30 America,
changing one paragraph to suit himself without any word to me whatsoever.
His paragraph flatly contradicted what had gone before and what came
after but that didn't seem to trouble him. Hereafter, I'll
stick to fiction.

Sally writes that your aunt Agnes may demand your attention in
Florida. We'd meet you in Atlanta and take you back there if you
could stop over.

I am sending Sally the picture of Cal & Elizabeth xxx and
baby that was in Life a couple of weeks ago. I take it you saw it
Elizabeth looks properly maternal and he looks xxx as if somebody
has just hit him over the head with a brick.

Mr. Parker is proving himself a great addition. He is the kind
who isn't happy unless he is working and as my mother is the kind who
isn't happy unless he is working, they are getting alone lovely.

Well excelsior and I hope you are bearing up under the clerical
atmosphere. I feel I am cultivating a Baptist sensibility.

Milledgeville

17 April 57

Dear Robt,

My many and considered thanks particularly for meeting
me in Chicago and for the innerduction. If you don't want
that innerduction, I wish you'd send it to me if you still
have it as I could show it to my mother and she could use it
to slam down a few of her sisters with. I'm sure you wouldn't
want it to go to waste and it would be a real meat axe for
her purposes.

I had some profound meditations on the way back
on the dreary plane fide from Chicago on the subject of the
Catholic college. I remembered a joke about the graduate
of the Catholic college. The graduate of the Catholic
college on being handed his diploma thinks: oh goody, now
I know how to think. (Long pause) If I only had something
to think about. (End of joke.) That fits Dr. Crabfoil's
problem too. Also it occurred to me that the way to identify
a Catholic lay teacher is that when you go to his house he
has more children than furniture.

I am reporting on this trip to your wife and sending
her some of the hair stuff she wanted along with the informa-
tion that I didn't consider you capable of a complicated
purchase like that.

Cheers and I hope yr holiday traveling will be painless.

CORRESPONDENCE (America, April 20, 1957)

22 April 57

Uses of Fiction

EDITOR: I have just read and *deeply* reread Miss Flannery O'Connor's article "The Church and the Fiction Writer" (AM 3/30). It states well the constantly reiterated case of some Catholic authors. Yet...it has passed over an important point: what are Catholics supposed to read who are interested in preserving their innocence untainted? Or what are non-Catholics to read in which to discover the complete picture of what it means to be an other-Christ?

Must all Catholic writers take it for granted that "we lost our
innocence in the fall of our first parents, and our return to it is
through the redemption which was brought about by Christ's death and
by our slow participation in it" (italics mine)? How does one prove
so general and unqualified a statement?

(Rev.) Laurence E. Henderson, S. J.

Loyola University
Chicago, Illinois

Milledgeville

26 October 58

Dear S&R,

These are the pictures that the Rev. T. James McNamara
sent us last week. They are a gift from the Arch-bishop and
To James sent his address in case you wish to thank him

pussonally: Most. Rev. Gerald P. O'Hara, D.D., J.U.D.
Apostolic Delegation
54 Parkside
London 19, England

The Misses Bennet sent us a copy of their travel diary. You
are known in that document as Mrs. Fitzgerald of Genoa.

Sent you some of those bedroom shoes and Robt a book that
I think is very good though most of it is over my head.

The Cheneys and Tom Stritch spent the day with us
not long ago. Lon's book has come out and is very good but
the publishers didn't get the review copies out in time and
it has died on the vine.

They say in about ten months the public schools in Georgia
will begin to go. All the children are going to be running
in packs. This is going to be bad for everybody but us
novelists, but I guess I was born twenty years too soon to
cash in on the real results.

We hope Hugh likes living with the Sisters as well as
she thought she would. At least they ain't Irish sisters.
Let us hear how you do.

Monday

Dear S&R

I hope you all aren't still sitting around New York waiting on that baby. I reckon it is a boy or it would be on time. Anyway, your scientist must have miscalculated and it's good for them to do that sometime so they'll remember they can. We went to see mine in Atlanta last week and he was very cheerful which, as we pay our bills promptly, he ought to be.

Miss Fenwick Way wrote that her husband had designed the new cover for the Hudson Review and that the Hudson Review was making arrangements with him to publish a prize book in fiction, poetry, and criticism that they would select and take the losses on.

I ain't heard anything from my book except that they are still thinking about it; I'm afraid if they don't take it nobody else will so stick it in your prayers somewhere.

My mother is out fixing a combine. She is getting to be quite a mechanic since everything is always broken. She stands over Shot and says, "try taking out this screw," and he takes it out and the machine still don't go so she has him take out another one and that goes on all morning and by afternoon they have it running, all tied up with haywire.

Let us hear.

Flannery

Friday

Dear S&R

I am at home already as I came yesterday instead of today, being
the sporter, by Wednesday, of a fine rash, which I didn't know whether
was lupus or not but which the scientist says is poison ivy or some
of its connections. Believe me, I am glad to have poison ivy. I
said I hadn't been wallowing in any so he says oh it could be furniture
polish or anything. He don't care to treat anything that you couldn't
die with. I got a very bored attention.

The Woodstock is very nice but don't try it in the summer. I
had a room with one window overlooking the incinerator. I had dinner
lunch with Giroux Wednesday and he seemed to agree to the book of
short stories for next fall--1954. Agreeable and vague, a perfect
publisher.

I certainly had a nice time but Regina says it is very improper
for me to visit you and at least not ask you here. I say Good Lord
what would they want to bring all those children and come down here
for and she says that doesn't even deserve an answer. She seems to
be very well and is red hot on any number of subjects.

My peachkin bit the dust. Regina suspects a possum got it
as it was found minus its head. Next year if I hatch any I plan
to have them sleep in the room with me.

I had another letter from the A. D. man. The ecclesiastical
style when employed by laymen is very interesting. First letter it
was Sincerely Yours in Christ, second letter, Yous in Christ, third
letter, In Christ. I am waiting eagerly for the next one. However
I am sure this man's heart is in the right place. He said he was
waiting on word from Allen Tate who agreed with his editorial changes.
Robie is now a contributing editor and also Jacques Maritain.

I hope the people took your place. Let me know. I itch.

Yours,

Monday

Dear S&R

I have had a lot of tests and X-rays and have found out that the trouble is not the appendix but a misplaced kidney--it being some inches below where it ought to be and not draining properly. I go to the hospital Friday to have it hung on a rib. This will mean three weeks in the hospital and then four or five at home. This has been a shock to me. Will it be convenient for you to have me again in March? The doctor says I will be all right then and in need of no special consideration. I am going to have my appendix out at the same time, figuring I might as well hurt two places once than one place two times; but when this is over I don't know if I'll know what I'm writing a novel about or not. Anyway I'll want to get on with it.

I am enclosing a letter which will show you what I was trying to say about Iowa City and Paul Engle. Please send it back to me. I hate to think that Cal may go out there and be ~~KXX~~ Paul's victim. He will probably get out there and find the job considerably shrunk from Paul's description of it as that too is Paul's way. I hesitate to send ~~KXX~~ Robie's letter to Cal or Elizabeth as I ~~KXX~~ feel after seeing them that I would do well to mind my business, but if Robie sees Cal, he might mention it if he thinks fit. I don't much ~~KX~~ think ~~KKX~~ went Paul would hesitate to publicize (sp?) anything Cal did in Iowa City and probably other things he ~~wanktxdnzx~~ didn't do, won't do.

I am more than distressed that I ~~KX~~ won't get back when I wanted to but it don't do well for me to think about it. Let me know if you can have me again in March, or if not then, when. I hope you are all well