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Penguin
July 2011
On Sale: July 7, 2011
Featuring: Flannery O'Connor; Cookie Himmel
161 pages ISBN: 1594202923 EAN: 9781594202926 Hardcover
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Contemporary | Fiction Family Life
In Flannery O'Connor's hometown of Milledgeville,
Georgia, reckless relationships lead to a tragedy that
forever alters the town and the author herself. Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery
O'Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home
to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia.
Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to
her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the
wedding of a family friend. Cookie Himmel embodies every facet of Southern womanhood
that Flannery lacks: she is revered for her beauty and
grace; she is at the helm of every ladies' organization in
town; and she has returned from her time in Manhattan with a
rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Melvin has come to
Milledgeville to begin a new chapter in his life, but it is
not until he meets Flannery that he starts to take a good
hard look at the choices he has made. Despite the
limitations of her disease, Flannery seems to be more alive
than other people, and Melvin is drawn to her like a moth to
a candle flame. Melvin is not the only person in Milledgeville who starts to
feel that life is passing him by. Lona Waters, the dutiful
wife of a local policeman, is hired by Cookie to help create
a perfect home. As Lona spends her days sewing curtains, she
is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be
truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands. Heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human, these
ordinary and extraordinary people chart their own courses
through life. In the aftermath of one tragic afternoon, they
are all forced to look at themselves and face up to
Flannery's observation that "the truth does not change
according to our ability to stomach it."
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