The Violent Bear It Away A Novel [Paperback]

A brilliant, innovative novel, acutely alert to where the sacred livesand where it does not

First published in 1960,The Violent Bear It Awayis a landmark in American literaturea dark and absorbing example of the Gothic sensibility and bracing satirical voice that are united in Flannery O'Connor's work.
In this, O'Connor's second novel, the orphaned Francis Marion Tarwater and his cousin, the schoolteacher Rayber, defy the prophecy of their dead uncle that Tarwater will become a prophet and baptize Rayber's young son, Bishop. A series of struggles ensues, as Tarwater fights an internal battle against his innate faith and the voices calling him to be a prophet while Rayber tries to draw Tarwater into a more reasonable modern world. Both wrestle with the legacy of their dead relative and lay claim to Bishop's soul. All this is observed by O'Connor with an astonishing combination of irony and compassion, humor and pathos.

Flannery O'Connor(1925-1964) was one of Americas most gifted writers. She wrote two novels,Wise BloodandThe Violent Bear It Away, and two story collections,A Good Man Is Hard to FindandEverything That Rises Must Converge. HerComplete Stories, published posthumously in 1972, won the National Book Award that year, and in a 2009 online poll it was voted as the best book to have won the award in the contest's 60-year history. Her essays were published inMystery and Mannersand her letters inThe Habit of Being.

I am sure her books will live on and on in American Literature Elizabeth Bishop

There is very little contemporary fiction which touches the level of Flannery O'Connor at her best. Alan Pryce-Jones, New York Herald Tribune