The protagonist of 'The Enduring Chill', a short story Flannery O'Connor began in the autumn of 1957, is a 25-year-old would-be writer called Asbury Fox, who has been forced to return from Manhattan to the family farm in rural Georgia on account of a mysterious illness from which he believes he is dying. His path-breaking play on 'the Negro' has not yet been written; he has, however, completed a letter to his mother that fills two notebooks, and which he means her to read after his death. 'It was such a letter,' we are informed, 'as Kafka had addressed to his father.'

LRB 23 July 2009 | PDF Download