n nThe landscape of American literature was fundamentally changed when Flannery OConnor stepped onto the scene with her first published book, Wise Blood, in 1952. Her fierce, sometimes comic novels and stories reflected the darkly funny, vibrant, and theologically sophisticated woman who wrote them. Brad Gooch brings to life OConnors significant friendships--with Robert Lowell, Elizabeth Hardwick, Walker Percy, and James Dickey among others--and her deeply felt convictions, as expressed in her communications with Thomas Merton, Elizabeth Bishop, and Betty Hester. Hester was famously known as A in OConnors collected letters, The Habit of Being, and a large cache of correspondence to her from OConnor was made available to scholars, including Brad Gooch, in 2006. OConnors capacity to live fully--despite the chronic disease that eventually confined her to her mothers farm in Georgia--is illuminated in this engaging and authoritative biography.n