I’d never call Flannery
O’Connor a Southern spinster,
because she was married
to her writing. I
might call her a battered
wife, because her words
never flinched from beating
the shit out of her or
anyone else. Flannery
felt most loved after
a good beating.
She was
15 when her father
died of lupus and I
wonder if that teenaged
girl cursed God out loud for
His graceful application
of disease. When she grew
older, would she say that
suffering was the price she
paid for grace or that her
suffering itself was
grace applied?
On the back
cover of her book I
read that “O’Connor died
at 39 at the
height of her power.” When
sweat soaked the cotton sheets
of her deathbed, I wonder
if she still considered
the bargain a fair one.
Tomorrow, I’d like to
open my mailbox and
find a letter handwritten
by Flannery’s skinny,
pigeon-toed ghost, assuming
she still writes letters. And
I’d like her to address
one question: When the subject
is God’s grace, is death the
ultimate expression?
Tom Llewellyn
a writer who shamelessly shills for corporations
father of two boys for now and two girls to come
half of Beautiful Angle, a guerilla poster project
lover of Tacoma, cheese and Black Butte Porter
