Mark Ford writes:

‘As for biographies,’ O’Connor once observed, ‘there won’t be any biographies of me because, for only one reason, lives spent between the house and the chicken yard do not make exciting copy.’ From 1955 on she had to make use of crutches, but still managed to get around on the college lecture circuit, and even agreed to be interviewed for an arts programme on television. While undoubtedly her profile was lower than that of the other two main contemporary proponents of Southern Gothic, Truman Capote and Carson McCullers (both of whose work she detested), she was by no means publicity-shy. Her letters are lively and affectionate, though also at times, as one would expect, on the caustic side; they help Gooch to develop a convincing sense of her beliefs and literary enthusiasms, while interviews with surviving friends and visitors to Andalusia allow him to re-create her day-to-day doings on the farm and in and around Milledgeville.

(LRB 23 July 2009)

Little, Brown | hardback 448 pp. |ISBN: 9780316000666