One of the valuable things about poetry is that it can introduce us to a new person or place, by giving us a snapshot into a new story to explore. Tom Llewellyn’s poem below, “I’d never call Flannery,” introduces Geography of Grace readers to someone who is a bit of a matron saint of ideas that guide the work of many contributors to this site.
Without going heavy on biography (you can feel free to do your own research), Flannery was a southern Catholic writer, primarily of short stories but also three novels, and many letters and essays. She died young at the age of 39 from lupus, which she suffered with for the majority of her life, and from which her father also died when she was the age of fifteen.
Flannery is a lightning rod. Her stories are troubling, unsettling, and often misunderstood. Flannery fits what would be known as the Southern Gothic genre, although certainly she may either embody or transcend that distinction at times; she is hard to define. I was surprised and delighted at a comment I heard last year at the Sundance Film Festival when at a screening for Craig Brewer’s movie Black Snake Moan (he also was the director of Hustle and Flow). Craig was asked about his influences, and rather than film makers he referenced Tennessee Williams and the short stories of Flannery O’Connor, which his grandmother gave him. Ever since then they have haunted and delighted him.
What you must know about Flannery that completely defines her writing and her world view are the following: she is southern, she is catholic, she is a story teller, and all of her stories are about grace.
Flannery is southern. In particular she writes from a southern perspective not as an outsider but as an insider. This is powerful because it gives her the ability to critique and protect the south, and she does both. However, she has very little time for an outside critique about southern ways, race relations, or southern religion (particularly from what she would consider the northern perspective). I think Flannery would say, “You have nothing to say about something you don’t know anything about. She believed that unless you are a southerner, you couldn’t possibly speak effectively or authentically about the south.
Flannery is a Catholic, and her writing takes a Catholic perspective on God, religion, and the world. She is oriented towards the sacraments. Like many other Catholic authors (Walker Percy, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, etc…), the sacramental is a part of the stories she tells; strong, concrete and tangible images that embody theological truths and God’s incarnation in the world. Because Flannery is southern and Catholic, it creates an interesting dialogue in her stories between “old time” southern religion which was usually protestant, Pentecostal, and/or holiness in form and of which she is critical but not dismissive. In fact it is always the religious fanatic, the informally educated, the lower class, the freak, the grotesque or absurd that is the vehicle of grace and transformation in Flannery’s stories.
Flannery is a story teller and not a philosopher or theologian. There are many ideas in Flannery’s stories, many worldviews and perspectives that she held and that you can read about in her letters and correspondence. However, Flannery did not look kindly on the dissection of her stories in this way. She did not see herself first and foremost as giving an opinion but rather that she was giving us a story. She was a writer, and writers try to tell stories. The stories themselves speak and don’t need any commentary. That is the power of these stories and Flannery’s legacy, not trying to “figure” them out but letting the stories speak, as troubling and unsettling as they might be.
Finally, all of Flannery’s stories are about grace. This confounds some first time readers because often in our culture we have a view of grace that is different from Flannery’s. For Flannery, grace is all about transformation and God breaking into the world in a way that makes a difference. You might call her view disruptive grace because in Flannery’s view things are such a mess and we are such a mess that grace must come in what is often a violent, grotesque, and absurd way. When grace shows up, it shows up in the people and places we least expect it, it shows up in the vehicle that we often have the hardest time accepting as grace. Yet, it is this grotesque, violent, and absurd vessel that leads to the awareness and transformation of ones self and the world; and that is what Flannery would label as grace.
Increasingly, contemporary readers struggle with Flannery’s handling of race and religion. I can only say that we must read her in her context. Flannery’s view of race is a complex one. In many ways she is progressive in her time but she deeply distrusted and resented the northern ideas of dealing with race. She often critically stereotypes the young white southerner who goes north to get educated to come back enlightened to teach the hillbillies a lesson.
Certainly, Flannery was racist, as we all are. I’d offer that we be careful to critique and hold her accountable without losing the profound truths and grace communicated in her stories, particularly as they are understood in her time and context. Dr. Martin Luther King’s words to us about race, peace, justice, and morality should not be dismissed because he himself was unethical or immoral in other parts of his life. Mother Teresa’s legacy and the profound nature of her life’s work should not be diminished because she wrestled with God’s existence within the dark night of the soul amid the suffering of Calcutta. So it is that I encourage us to remember what we have in common with Flannery. There is no doubt that grace pools up in the lowest places of Flannery’s stories, practically drowning her characters and the readers in an effort to startle them out of the haze of their captivity and deliver them towards a place where transformation can begin. Flannery’s stories are about seeing that God is at work in the hardest people and places; the absurd, the violent, and the grotesque.
Tad Monroe
a portly pastor poet in Tacoma, Washington
co-founder and director of City of Destiny Faith and Film series
takes comfort in the fact that The Dude abides...
12 year old scotch or PBR, both acceptable and enjoyable
