A Good Hard Look Paperback - 2012

Name: A Good Hard Look: A Novel of Flannery O'Connor
Price: 12.66 USD
Availability: InStock
Author: Ann Napolitano
ISBN: 9780143121152

by Ann Napolitano

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

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Summary

Forced by illness to leave behind a successful life as a writer in New York, Flannery O’Connor has returned to her family farm in Milledgeville, Georgia. She desires a quiet, solitary existence, but her mother, Regina, drags Flannery to the wedding of a family friend.

The embodiment of southern womanhood, Cookie Himmel is Flannery’s antithesis and has returned from her time in Manhattan to marry rich fiancé, Melvin Whiteson. Lona Waters, a dutiful housewife, is hired by Cookie to help create a perfect home, but when she is given an opportunity to remember what it feels like to be truly alive, and she seizes it with both hands.

In the course of one tragic afternoon, these characters must take a good hard look at the choices they have made and face up to O’Connor’s observation that “the truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.”

From the publisher

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. She lives in New York City with her family.

Details

Title A Good Hard Look
Author Ann Napolitano
Binding Paperback
Edition Reprint
Pages 352
Volumes 1
Language ENG
Publisher Penguin Books
Date 2012-06-26
Features Price on Product - Canadian
ISBN 9780143121152 / 0143121154
Weight 0.55 lbs (0.25 kg)
Dimensions 7.9 x 5.2 x 0.9 in (20.07 x 13.21 x 2.29 cm)
Ages 18 to UP years
Grade levels 13 - UP
Themes
- Cultural Region: Southeast U.S.
- Cultural Region: South
- Geographic Orientation: Georgia
Library of Congress subjects Domestic fiction, Women authors
Dewey Decimal Code FIC

Media reviews

“Ann Napolitano’s second novel, A Good Hard Look, is haunted by those peacocks and by O’Connor herself. Though Napolitano doesn’t try to write like O’Connor — her gentle, quietly elegant prose is worlds away from the powerful, often devastatingly harsh Southern Gothic world in which O’Connor dwelled — her book nonetheless emerges as a graceful tribute, not only to a writer, but to a time and place.”

About the author

Ann Napolitano is the bestselling author of Hello Beautiful which was selected as Oprah's 100th Book Club pick; Dear Edward, an instant New York Times bestseller, a Read with Jenna selection, and an Apple TV+ series; A Good Hard Look; and Within Arm's Reach. For seven years, Napolitano was the associate editor of the literary magazine One Story, and she received an MFA from New York University. She has taught fiction writing at Brooklyn College's MFA program, New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Gotham Writers Workshop.