Peculiar Crossroads: Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, and Catholic Vision in Postwar Southern Fiction (Southern Literary Studies)

The two southern fiction writers most informed by orthodox religion, Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy were also among the most influential southern writers of their generation. In Peculiar Crossroads, Farrell O'Gorman explains that the radical religiosity of O'Connor and Percy's vision is precisely what made them so valuable as both southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, O'Gorman asserts, these two unabashedly Catholic authors bequeathed to even their most unorthodox successors a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha. O'Gorman builds his argument with biographical, historical, literary, and theological evidence, examining the two writers' work through intriguing pairings-such as O'Connor's Wise Blood with Percy's The Moviegoer, and O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find with Percy's Lancelot. He traces the influence exerted on their thought by the mid-century transatlantic Catholic Revival and by their relationships with southern modernists Caroline Gordon and Allen Tate. Ultimately, Percy and O'Connor embraced a Christian existentialist view that led them to dissent from both the historical, tragic mode of the Southern Renascence and the absurdist apocalypticism of much postwar American fiction. They were, O'Gorman concludes, transitional figures, more optimistic about their culture's future than the modernists and more optimistic about the truth-telling capacities of language and literature than the postmodernists. An impeccable exercise in literary history and criticism, Peculiar Crossroads renders a genuine understanding of the Catholic sensibility of both O'Connor and Percy and their influence among contemporary southern writers. In Peculiar Crossroads, Farrell O'Gorman explains how the radical religiosity of both Flannery O'Connor's and Walker Percy's vision made them so valuable as southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, O'Gorman asserts, these two unabashedly Catholic authors bequeathed a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha. O'Gorman builds his argument with biographical, historical, literary, and theological evidence, examining the writers'work through intriguing pairings, such as O'Connor's Wise Blood with Percy's The Moviegoer, and O'Connor's A Good Man Is Hard to Find with Percy's Lancelot. An impeccable exercise in literary history and criticism, Peculiar Crossroads renders a genuine understanding of the Catholic sensibility of both O'Connor and Percy and their influence among contemporary southern writers. "The two southern fiction writers most informed by orthodox religion, Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy were also among the most influential southern writers of their generation. In Peculiar Crossroads, Farrell O'Gorman explains that the radical religiosity of O'Connor and Percy's vision is precisely what made them so valuable as both southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, O'Gorman asserts, these two unabashedly Catholic authors bequeathed to even their most unorthodox successors a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha." "An exercise in literary history and criticism, Peculiar Crossroads renders a genuine understanding of the Catholic sensibility of both O'Connor and Percy and their influence among contemporary southern writers."--Jacket Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Abbreviations......Page 10 introduction......Page 14 1. “We have had our fall”: Malaise and Mystery in the Lives of Flannery O’Connor and Walker Percy......Page 28 2. South to Rome: Four Southern Writers and the Catholic Revival......Page 64 3. Toward a Catholic Theory of Fiction: A Christian Realism of the “Here-and-Now”......Page 116 4. Postwar America and the End of the Modern South: Catastrophes, Castaways, New Worlds......Page 164 5. Languages of Mystery: Legacies of O’Connor and Percy in Contemporary Southern Letters......Page 212 Selected Bibliography......Page 250 Index......Page 258 In Peculiar Crossroads, Farrell O'Gorman explains how the radical religiosity of both Flannery O'Connor's and Walker Percy's vision made them so valuable as southern fiction writers and social critics. Via their spiritual and philosophical concerns, O'Gorman asserts, these two unabashedly Catholic authors bequeathed a postmodern South of shopping malls and interstates imbued with as much meaning as Appomattox or Yoknapatawpha. O'Gorman builds his argument with biographical, historical, literary, and theological evidence, examining the writers' work through intriguing pairings, such as O'Connor We Have Had Our Fall : Malaise And Mystery In The Lives Of Flannery O'connor And Walker Percy -- South To Rome : Four Southern Writers And The Catholic Revival -- Toward A Catholic Theory Of Fiction : A Christian Realism Of The Here-and-now -- Postwar America And The End Of The Modern South : Catastrophes, Castaways, New Worlds -- Languages Of Mystery : Legacies Of O'connor And Percy In Contemporary Southern Letters. Farrell O'gorman. Based On Author's Thesis (ph. D.)--university Of North Carolina, 2000. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 237-244) And Index. This exercise in literary history and criticism renders a genuine understanding of the Catholic sensibility of Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy and their influence among contemporary southern writers. It explains that the radical religiosity of their vision is what made them so valuable as both southern fiction writers and social critics.