Ventura County Star from Ventura, California • 49

Books Sunday March 1 2009 FC The Star D9 i ne SDirit oi a woman On the page A Ufa of Flannery by Brad Gooch (Illustrated 448 pages Little Brown Co $30) New biography explores mystery behind author Flannery ByJmmaaUi New York Times News Service Brad rapt authoritative is the first mqjor biography of a writer who died 44 yean ago Where is the flood of other biographical material about this mystical ornery ardentfy admired Southern writer? There has been at least one other account of life (written by Jean Cash and deemed merely step in the right direction" by Publishers Weekly in 2002) And there have been many book-length critical studies of her work has been long overdue for the mqjor biography that Gooch has written reveals not only why its brilliantly persnickety subject warrants such attention but also why it has been so slow in coming Here are some of the best-known facts about the authpr of Blood" Good Man is Hard to Find" and other stories She buy the stories of an Irish washerwoman?" she joked about not wanting to be Mary O'Connor) she had a brief but memorable stint as a cartoonist during her college days She signed the cartoons MFOC and wrote usual MF when signing yearbooks Gotag wfcoro the action was She propelled herself to both the Iowa Workshop and Yaddo the colony in Saratoga Springs NY at times when life at both places was eventful but she managed to steer clear of trouble When her friend Robert Lowell began exhibiting extreme behavior at Yaddo she recalled: was too inexperienced to know he was mad I just thought that was the way poets acted" With Lowell and his wife Elizabeth Hardwick as with other couples O'Connor eqjoyed playing third wheel and child But she Urns Brows Md Company goaded most comfortable when entrenched at Andalusia surrounded by birds and entertaining the occasional literary visitor "Mr Giroux you get Flannery to write about nice her mother asked the editor Robert Giroux but O'Connor had her own notions about what nice meant ShufoltUMMpwItliBMgNNi a wonderful children's book" she said about publication of Kill A Mockingbird" by her fellow Southern loner Harper Lee 1 When she inquired about films by man Ingmar she cgme unusually close to identifying a kindred spirit steeped in spiritual rigor too are apparently medieval" she said considering common ground between his works and her own told Hestrt about a movie theater in Milledgeville playing the film in the starring Elvis Presley about rehabilitation of a country boy from Flannery took great pleasure in having her own country boy Rufus shimmy down a hallway in dead corset belting out Rattle and Roll'" Gooch writes of "The Lame Shall Enter What makes so valuable is the degree of intimacy with which it captures sensibility in that story What creates a gap is Gooch's use of the word something in that that he doesn't fathom There's still a part of O'Connor that we really know raised peacocks She suffered from lupus and died of that disease at 39 She lived inclusively with her mother at Andalusia the family farm in Milledgeville Ga Her racial attitudes were uncharitable at best and they showed up in her work And she combined the sexual knowingness of a 12-year-old with a gender-bending fusion of Southern gothic and luridly medieval sensibilities in her mordant theologically inspired storytelling Not one of these things readily lends itself to biographical inquiry But Gooch who reaffirms the discerning taste he demonstrated in his 1993 biography of the poet Frank is an unusually patient acolyte He first expressed interest in writing an biography nearly three decades ago he said only to be snubbed by friend Sally Fitzgerald who planned a book of her own (Fitzgerald left behind an unfinished manuscript when she died in 2000) Gooch who began work on this book in 2003 was ready to roam the world in hopes of penetrating the mystique may make its subject sound like a stay-at-home but Gooch went from Georgia to fowa to taurdes following her trail of bread crumbs He also had access to a cache of recently revealed hugely illuminating letters between and her friend Betty Hester who had a great crush on her And he tracked down unpublished correspondence between and Erik Langkjaer the rare man known to have romantically attracted her Don't expect a writlag critique book lacks the dimension of strong literary criticism work does not come alive on this pages except as Gooch traces the origins of incidents and ideas But the tart voice witty and flippant immune to vanity is very much in evidence captures the spirit of the woman who described her talent this way to Hester: come from a family where the only emotion respectable to show is irritation In some this tendency produces hives in others literature in me both" Since must sometimes grasp at straws it begins by placing great importance on a formative childhood incident the filming of a 1932 Pathe newsreel titled Chicken Goes in Reverse" and showing little Mary Flannery with an early feathered companion What did this prefigure about the adult writer? How did the chicken lead her to peacocks? What link existed in her devoutly religious mind between feathers and wings? Gooch really answer those questions but he has written a piquant book about a woman odd enough to have sewed clothing for her birds to wear Dropping her given first name for the sake of her writing career was likely to BEST-SELLERS Hardcover fiction 1 by John Grisham (Doubleday) 2 Your Life" by James Patterson and Michael Ledwidge (Little Brown) 3 and Soul" by Maeve Binchy (Knopf) 4 Host" by Stephenie Meyer (Little Brown) 5 A by Christopher Moore (William Morrow) 6 by Patricia Briggs (Ace) 7 on It: A Chet and Bernie by Spencer Quinn (Atria) 8 "True Colors" Kristin Hannah (St Martin's Press) 9 Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie by Mary Ann Shaffer Annie Barrows (Dial) 10 Story of Edgar Saw telle" by David Wroblewski (Ecco) 1L by Adriana Trigiani (Harper) 12 Spooky" by Janet Evanovich (St Press) 13 by TC Boyle (Viking Adult) 14 by Dan Simmons (Little Brown) 15 My Sister Sleeps" by Barbara Delinsky (Doubleday) Nraflctlonfensnl 1 Like a Lady Think Like a Man: What Men Really Think About Love Relationships Intimacy and Commitment" by Steve Harvey (Amistad) 2 Yankee by Joe Torre and Tom Verducci (Doubleday) 3 The Story of by Malcolm Gladwell (Little Brown) 4 "The Last by Randy Pausch and Jeffrey Zaslow (Hyperion) 5 Finding Your Path to by Tony Dungy and Nathan Whitaker (Tyndale House Publishers) 6 The Small-Town Library Cat Who Touched the by Vicki Myron Brett Witter (Grand Central) 7 Secret" by Rhonda Byrne (Atria BooksBeyond Words) 8 The Historic by Jill Abramson Bill Keller (Callaway Adult) 9 by Thomas Ricks (Penguin Press HC) 10 Blessings: Surviving to Thriving with Twins and by Jon and Kate Gosselin Beth Carson (Zondervan) 11 We Suck: A Feel Good Guido to Staying Fat Loud Lazy and by Denis Leary (Viking Adult) 12 A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed the Economy Tanked and Government Bailouts Will Make Things by Thomas Woods Jr (Regnery) 13 Slobbering Love Affair: The Trua (and Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream by Bernard Goldberg (Regnery Publishing) 14 Belly by Liz Vaccariello and Cynthia Sass (Rodale Books) 15 Lincoln" by Ronald White Jr (Random House) Mass market paperbacks 1 of a by Sophie Kinsella (Dell) 2 by John Grisham (Dell) 3 by Jude Deveraux (Pocket) 4 "Revolutionary by Richard Yates (Vintage) 5 by Danielle Steel (Dell) 6 Ghost War" by Alex Berenson (Jove) 7 "Fireside: The Lakeshor by Susan Wiggs (Mira) 8 AN Night" by Liz Carlyle (Pocket) 9 by Sherrilyn Kenyon (St Martin's) 10 "Angels A by Dan Brown (Pocket) 11 "Charmed A by Nora Roberts (Sillhouette) 12 by Lisa Jackson and Nancy Bush (Zebra) 13 hi by Robert Parker (Berkley) 14 'Montana Creeds: by Linda Lael Miller (HQN) 15 "Mariey A by John Grogan (Harper) Had paperbacks 1 by William Young (Windblown Media) 2 This Not That! Supermarket Survival by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding (Rodale Books) 3 by Bernhard Schlink (Vintage) 4 "Three Cups Of by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin (Penguin) 5 At by James Patterson Gabrielle Charbonnet (Grand Central ftiblishing) 6 from My by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press) 7 "Suze Orman's 2009 Action by Suze Orman (Spiegel A Grau) 8 by Kristin Hannah (St Martin's Griffin) 9 Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American by Barack Obama (Three Rivers Press) 10 "Eat This Not That! Thousands of Simple Food Swaps that Can Save You 10 20 30 Pounds or by David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding (Rodale Books) 1L Just Not That Into You: The No-Excuses Truth to Understanding by Greg Behrendt and Liz Tuccillo (Simon Spotlight Entertainment) 12 by Rory Freedman and Kim Bamouin (Running Press) 11 "What to Expect When You're by Heidi Murkoff Sharon Mazel (Workman Publishing Group) 14 of Rivals: The Political Genius of Abraham by Doris Kearns Goodwin (Simon A Schuster) 11 by Curtis Sittenfeld (Random House) Publishers Weekly BOOK REVIEW ROUNDUP Book Of Night by Marion thoughtsaboutkillingall whites on the The remaining three-quarters? A bizarre James (Riverhead 417 pages plantation energy an anti-gravitational pressure that Marion James' powerful novel takes places Reading has made her wise as well as permeates space-time and has the potential to on an early 19th-century Jamaican sugar romantic She warns Homer that the rebellion rip our cosmos apart in the distant future We plantation Homer a woman is one of six is suicidaL But Homer must prove that she is in are mere flotsam in this covert cosmic realm hate-poisoned half sisters all disfigured by charge and the bloody revolt erupts Gates aims to write for both professional whippings who have been meeting at night Gail Lumet Buckley author qf "The Homes: scientists and laypeople though she openly for years to plan an apocalyptic slave rebellion An American and Patriots: concedes that to newcomers some of these among neighboring plantations The Story of Blacks in the Military from concepts will be to digest the first They're all house slaves and daughters of the the Revolution to Desert time through" former overseer green-eyed Jack Wilkins In places her book does read like a textbook All slavery was cruel but none was as brutal Telescope: The Hunt for Dark but at least a textbook with style A dry tome and inhumane as in the West Indies where Matter apd Dark Energy in the ask you to look through the end erf whites were vastly outnumbered Black life by Evalyn Gates (Norton 305 pages an empty wineglass to learn how dark matter was cheap especially since roving bands of $2191) canbendlightdue to the warps it imprints on armed runaways called Maroons captured new Baffling entities called dark matter and dark space-time runaways for a fee energy are the two biggest mysteries facing Astronomy aficionados will relish her lucid Homer recruits a spirited green-eyed teen 21st-century astronomers lessons on relativity and the symmetries in named LiUth who has killed a would-be rapist been a jolt to learn that the universe physics as well as her detailed reports on She teaches Utith to read and provides her we've become so familiar with all those the very latest observations supporting the a further education in killing and domestic planets stars swilling galaxies and glowing existence of dark matter and dark energy terror But in the midst of murder and arson gases is just 4 percent of the overall content Marcia Bartusiaka teacher in the MTT Lilith falls in love with Quinn a humane Irish Six times more consists of another type of graduate program in science writing whose overseer with his own issues with the British matter altogether possibly a subatomic particle latest book The Day We Found the Her feelings for Quinn give Lilith second yet to be discovered will be published this spring LITERARY HAPPENINGS Beatrix Potter painted for science before Peter Rabbit Thousand Oaks BM Thousand Oaks 497-8159 LITERARY NOTES Twelfth Night Books of Portland has 1 released "Tates of Jo Ellen by Thousand Oaks Hall writer Mike Chester Part mythology and oart comedv with ilustrations it can be ordered at 503-525-4941 or httpcArwwtweltthnightxom Ventura author Rebecca Turner has released HetasT ($13) in which Emma Logan is content as a writer wife and mother until her free-spirited cousin Helen comes to town To order visit httjrywwwiuniversexom LIBRARY NEWS Conputir workdiof 10 am Monday Prueter Library 510 Park Ave Port Hueneme 486-5460 PAWS for Readkig 3:30 pm Monday Camarillo Library 4101 Las Posas Road 388-5222 Bedtime stories 10:30 am Tuesday Foster Library 651 Main St Ventura 648-2716 Rimy Hep stories 1030am Tuesday and Wednesday Ojai Library 111 Ojai Ave 646-1639 Teen FantasySd-PI Writes CM 4:30 pm While in the Camarillo Friends of the Library bookstore recently I purchased the September-October 2007 issue of Mental Floss magazine and discovered that British artist and author Beatrix Potter had an alternative career before creating her internationally known Peter Rabbit series Contributor Hank Green writes the turn of the 19th century scientists had no way of photographing images under a microscope so Potter found herself churning out watercolor paintings of fungi in labs Pretty soon she'd become a well-respected mycologist and was one of the first scientists to study lichens At the time women were barred from attending scientific meetings so unde had to present her papers for her Eventually she had to settle for a more profession and thus Peter Rabbit was born" SPECIAL EVENTS Trail of Thought 6:30 pm Thursday Poetry reading at 856 Thompson BlwL Ventura 642-U46 Paamanma 7 pm Saturday Borders 125 Wednesday Camarillo Library 4101 Las Posas Road 388-5222 Book group 7:30 pm Wednesday Crack in the Edge of the World: America and the Great California Earthquake of 1906' by Simon Winchester Ojai Library 111 Ojai Ave 646-1639 Used beak sate 6 to 830 pm Friday and 10 am to 3 pm Saturday Sponsored by Thousand Oaks Friends of the Library Sale held at Community Art Gallery 2331 Borchaid Road Newbury Park (next to Newbury Park Library) 480-9737 Stories and craft 11 am Saturday Simi Valley Library 2969 Tapo Canyon Road 526-1735 Paers far Rsadhg 12:30 pm Saturday Wright Library 57 Day Road Ventura 642-0337 Opera tab 4 pm Saturday the Scenes' presented by a guest from the LA Opera Oxnard Library 251 South A SL 385-7500 STORY TIMES Monday 930 1030 and 1130 am Barnes A Noble 160 Westlake BM Thousand Oaks 446-2820 10 am Camarillo Library 4101 Las Posas Road 388-5222 1030 am (bilingual) and 5:30 pm (English) Prueter Library 510 Park Ave Port Hueneme 486-5460 Ikesday 930 a Barnes A Noble 4820 Telephone Road Ventura 339-0990 10 am Coionia Library 1500 Camino del Sol Oxnard 385-8108 10 am and 7 pm Camarillo Library 4101 Las Posas Road 388-5222 1030 am Oak View Library 55 Mahoney Ave 649-1521 10:30 am Prueter Library 510 Park Ave Port Hueneme 486-5460 11:30 am md 7 pm Simi Valley Library 2969 Tapo Canyon Road 526-1735 Wednesday 10 am Camarillo Library 4101 Las Posas Road 388-5222 1030 am Blanchard Library 119 Eighth SI Santa Paula 525-3618 1030 a an Prueter Library 510 Park Ave Port Hueneme 486-5460 Ttonday 10 am Coionia Library 1500 Camino del SoL Oxnard 385-8108 10:30 a an Moorpark Library 699 Moorpark Ave 517-6370 Friday 7 pm Barnes Noble 4820 Telephone Road Ventura 3394)990 Sabiriqf 1030 am Barnes A Noble 160 8 Westlake BtvrL Thousand Oaks 446-2820 We'd like to announce your news about literary events in Ventura County Send items at least three weeks in advance to Jo EBen Heil at PO Box 7083 Ventura CA 93006 samheilhotmailxom or fax to 482-6167 i.