A Good Hard Look (Advance Reading Copy)

Ann Napolitano

ISBN 10: 1594202923 / ISBN 13: 9781594202926

Published by Penguin Press (Penguin Random House), New York, 2011

About this Item

ADVANCE READING COPY. A fine copy. A clean, unmarked copy. Full text. Publicity material laid in. ARC.

Seller Inventory # FLAHIVE-2674

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Good Hard Look (Advance Reading Copy)
• Publisher: Penguin Press (Penguin Random House), New York
• Publication Date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1594202923
• ISBN 13: 9781594202926
• Binding: Soft cover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Advance Reading Copies

About this title

Synopsis

In Flannery O'Connor's hometown of Milledgeville, Georgia, reckless relationships lead to a tragedy that forever alters the town and the author herself.

Crippled by lupus at twenty-five, celebrated author Flannery O'Connor was forced to leave New York City and return home to Andalusia, her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. Years later, as Flannery is finishing a novel and tending to her menagerie of peacocks, her mother drags her to the wedding of a family friend.

Cookie Himmel embodies every facet of Southern womanhood that Flannery lacks: she is revered for her beauty and grace; she is at the helm of every ladies' organization in town; and she has returned from her time in Manhattan with a rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Melvin has come to Milledgeville to begin a new chapter in his life, but it is not until he meets Flannery that he starts to take a good hard look at the choices he has made. Despite the limitations of her disease, Flannery seems to be more alive than other people, and Melvin is drawn to her like a moth to a candle flame.

Melvin is not the only person in Milledgeville who starts to feel that life is passing him by. Lona Waters, the dutiful wife of a local policeman, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home. As Lona spends her days sewing curtains, she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands.

Heartbreakingly beautiful and inescapably human, these ordinary and extraordinary people chart their own courses through life. In the aftermath of one tragic afternoon, they are all forced to look at themselves and face up to Flannery's observation that "the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it."

About the Author

Ann Napolitano is the author of the novel Within Arm's Reach. She is a graduate of Connecticut College and received her MFA from New York University.