The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor » (Reprint)

Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. When she died at the age of thirty-nine, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Special Award

"I have come to think that the true likeness of Flannery O'Connor will be painted by herself, a self-portrait in words, to be found in her letters . . . There she stands, a phoenix risen from her own words: calm, slow, funny, courteous, both modest and very sure of herself, intense, sharply penetrating, devout but never pietistic, downright, occasionally fierce, and honest in a way that restores honor to the word."—Sally Fitzgerald, from the Introduction

Introduction by Sally Fitzgerald

Part I: Up North and Getting Home

1948-1952

Part II: Day In and Day Out

1953-1958

Part III: "The Violent Bear It Away"

1959-1963

Part IV: The Last Year

1964

Index