New Books In Literary Studies

When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O’Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel titled Why Do the Heathen Rage? Scholarly experts uncovered and studied the material, deeming it unpublishable. It stayed that way for more than fifty years. Until now. For the past ten-plus years, award-winning author Jessica Hooten Wilson has explored the 378 pages of typed and handwritten material of the novel—transcribing pages, organizing them into scenes, and compiling everything to provide a glimpse into what O’Connor might have planned to publish. Flannery O'Connor's 'Why Do the Heathen Rage?' A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress (Brazos Press, 2024) is the result of Hooten Wilson's work. In it, she introduces O’Connor’s novel to the public for the first time and imagines themes and directions O’Connor’s work might have taken. Including illustrations and an afterword from noted artist Steve Prince (One Fish Studio), the book unveils scen