During these travels, I met a professor at the University of Georgia. She suggested that I pay a visit to a local woman who had had her first book published by Harcourt, Brace & Company, where I was now a sales agent in the education branch. The professor believed that this author would enjoy meeting me because of her affiliation with the publishing firm. Weakened as she was by her disease, lupus, she wasn’t in contact with many people, so it would be nice to receive a visit from outside. A few years back, her father had died from the same disease, but the doctors had told her not to worry.
I was driven to her home outside the town of Milledgeville, Georgia. The farm was situated in the middle of a pretty deserted landscape consisting of a few villages, fields, and some woods. When I arrived, I saw a two-story farmhouse, which turned out to be from the middle of the 1800s.
Then Flannery’s mother, Regina, appeared in the doorway. Flannery herself couldn’t make it to the entrance because of her crutches. The mother was happy to receive a visitor for her daughter, since they lived in quite a lonesome place, but she made it clear that I shouldn’t expect to stay the night. Once I started visiting Flannery regularly, I could tell that Regina didn’t like my visits, even though she was quite polite. She perceived me as a threat, afraid that Flannery might settle down with me in Denmark.
In the new issue of Asymptote, Klaus Rothstein offers Erik Langkjær’s fascinating account of meeting—and kissing!—Flannery O’Connor. (Langkjær is the narrator of the section). Continue reading at Asymptote to get to the kissing.
