By Anne McBride

Georgia College in Milledgeville stands firmly in the center of town, surrounded by historic homes and buildings. The older red brick buildings with white pillars provide a fine background for the wide green leaves and the more recent College Center.

Mary Flannery O’Connor, famous now for her novels and short stories, once walked this campus where, even in 1945, her literary promise was evident. When illness forced her return in 1951, the college was a continuing part of her restricted life. It is in this setting that a seminar on Flannery O’Connor is conducted each summer.

Students had a special teacher this year in Mrs. Sally Fitzgerald. A petite woman with short, charcoal-gray hair, Mrs. Fitzgerald had been a close friend since the Georgia author’s early writing years in New York and has recently selected and edited O’Connor’s letters, entitling the publication “The Habit of Being.” She points out in her introduction to the letters that they reveal Flannery O’Connor to be, besides a witty and enthusiastic correspondent, “a striking apologist for Catholicism” with an avocation for theology.

Each weekday, Mrs. Fitzgerald led a class of about 20 students of varying ages to a deeper understanding of O’Connor’s works. She paused frequently to share an anecdote stemming from her long friendship with the author and her family. She encouraged them to enjoy the sharp humor with which all the stories are presented, reminding them that “Flannery always laughed herself when she read her stories.” Her voice, distinctive with its perfect diction and elegant vocabulary, surrounded each story with a rich background of sources, insights, and comments.

Mrs. Fitzgerald’s favorite short story is “The Artificial Nigger” and when explaining the significance of the dark lawn statue, she stressed the importance of that moment in the life of Mr. Head and his grandson when they were suddenly flooded with grace. One of Flannery O’Connor’s letters reflects this as she writes “all my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it...”

‘A Late Encounter...’

In another short story, “A Late Encounter with the Enemy,” old General Sash experiences a momentary confrontation “with the harsh truth of his own life, the wrongs he’s done, all he’s been avoiding,” explained Fitzgerald.

During the study of the novel “Wise Blood,” Mrs. Fitzgerald pointed out that “it takes a story to tell a story” and cited a possible source for the central character’s name. In the second book of Kings, chapter eight, King Hazael of Aram torments the children of Israeli just as Hazel Motes taunts those who are “saved.” She noted the theme of displacement that appears several times in the story and the silver spectacles worn by Hazel’s mother and then later by him, revealing to him a wrong, distorted view of his life. Gold spectacles in O’Connor stories are reserved for those who have a proper life view while “hats are talismans that give readers clues as to the nature of the character.”

Flannery O’Connor wrote “Wise Blood” while she was living with Sally and Robert Fitzgerald in their Connecticut home for two years. Two of Fitzgerald’s sons, Benedict and Michael, and Michael’s wife Kathy, produced the movie, “Wise Blood,” which was directed by John Houston and then premiered at this year’s Cannes Film Festival in May. It was filmed in Macon, Georgia, and also Atlanta. Locations there included the Atlanta Zoo, Cyclorama, Piedmont Park, Emory University Campus, and Peachtree Street.

Occasional Prose

Sally was co-editor with Robert Fitzgerald, of “Mystery and Manners,” a volume of occasional prose by Flannery O’Connor. This book and “The Habit of Being” were published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. Robert Giroux and Flannery O’Connor were godparents to one of the Fitzgerald’s daughters who now lives in London.

The letters illustrate the close ties between O’Connor and Fitzgerald. Flannery often relied on Sally’s opinion on details of her fiction. In May of 1958, Sally joined Flannery and her mother, Mrs. Regina O’Connor when they made a pilgrimage to Lourdes. The Fitzgeralds were living in Italy at that time.

And the title, “The Habit of Being,” that was given to the letters -- what does that really mean?

“Well,” said Mrs. Fitzgerald, “One can form the habit of being an artist, a scientist can develop the habit of being a scientist and Flannery had the habit of ‘being’ -- involved in being, as in the question, ‘To be or not to be?,’ not passive, complete involvement in being,...”

“Flannery was a deeply religious person. When she lived with us she went to daily Mass. And she realized that her church, her faith in no way interfered with her art.”

Andalusia

There are many changes in Milledgeville since Flannery O’Connor died there of lupus in 1964. The unpaved road leading to Andalusia, the family farm outside of town where Flannery and her mother lived during her illness, is overgrown with needs. A KEEP OUT sign above a closed gate abruptly warns the visitor to go no farther. A librarian instructs, “walk three blocks south of the college to the cemetery and line yourself up with the Baptist Church. You’ll find Flannery’s grave beside her father’s” Her mother now resides in the Gordon-Cline House near the college. Flannery’s peacocks unfurl their splendor for the monks at the monastery in Conyers, Georgia. The 1979 visiting O’Connor professor returned to her family in Cambridge Massachusetts.

But the manuscripts, books, tape recordings, and photographs are gathered together as a special collection in a small room on the second floor of the college library. It’s furnishings have a distinct Victorian flavor and the design in the carpet suggest the colorful fantail of a peacock. The FLANNERY O’CONNOR BULLETIN is published annually by Georgia College. It contains articles, pictures and poems -- all pertaining to the author and her works. And Sally Fitzgerald continues to study the stories and novel with scholarly scrutiny aided by a grant from the Radcliff Institute, long years of close friendship, and her own sharp literary sense.