The Correspondence of Flannery O'Connor and the Brainard Cheneys

Book excerpt: In 1953 Flannery O'Connor was so pleased by Brainard Cheney's review of her much misunderstood first novel Wise Blood that she wrote the reviewer to thank him. What Cheney, himself a novelist, had said about the book was right on target. Very soon a friendship between this rising star of southern literature and Brainard and Frances Cheney was flourishing. Over the next eleven years there was a spirited exchange of letters and visits. Whenever possible, the Cheneys stopped by Andalusia, the O'Connor farm near Milledgeville, Georgia, and O'Connor was able to visit them at Cold Chimneys, their home in Smyrna, Tennessee. This fascinating book collecting their correspondence reveals a devoted friendship that ended with Flannery O'Connor's death at thirty-nine in 1964. In these 188 letters, all previously unpublished, we see a new aspect of her life, the part she shared with "Lon" and "Fannie" Cheney. These letters not only give the pleasure of knowing more about the talented Cheneys, an eminent couple close to the Tate circle, but also provide yet another occasion for readers to revel in the delight of Flannery O' Connor's sparkling wit and dark humor. From O'Connor there are 117 letters, from Cheney 71. All Mrs. Cheney's letters to Flannery have been lost, but from the surviving correspondence the reader can note with pleasure the interests that seemed to draw this trio closer as they shared opinions and reports about their native South, their Roman Catholicism, their novels in progress, and their commitment to good writing. But it is chiefly the literary illuminations via these letters that enhance the friendship as well as ignite the reader's compelling curiosity. The letters focus attention upon a time in Flannery O'Connor's life when correspondence was of great importance to her. The O'Connor/Cheney letters make it clear that her circumscribed life was enlarged and enriched by this friendship during her most creative and productive years. - Jacket flap.