A Wreck on the Road to Damascus: Innocence, Guilt and Conversion in Flannery O'Connor

Ragen explores how Flannery O'Connor uses the automobile and other elements of popular culture "to embody the idea of perfect freedom." Sees her use "as an emblem for the philosophies" that celebrate this freedom, and observes her focus on "the figure of the solitary man, who is burdened by no past, forms no ties in the present, and is always able to create himself anew and assume a fresh identity." Outlines how her treatment shows that an individual must choose between the illusory promise of perfect freedom or the real offer of redemption. And, contends that the effectiveness of O'Connor's fiction lies in how she fuses elements from popular culture with biblical stories and images of violence. Suggests that she developed a theory of fiction based upon the idea that "a work can convey many meanings, including the most spiritual, by accurately describing the physical world." Discusses how essential Christian doctrines, such as Original Sin, salvation and the Incarnation, serve as a foundation for O'Connor's work. Offers readings of "Parker's Back," "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," and a lengthy, detailed explication of her novel, Wise Blood. Contends that in each, the main character's "reaction to the awful offer of grace is tightly bound up with [her] exploration of Christian mysteries and her attack on recent intellectual movements." Explores O'Connor's use of distortion "to write on what she called the anagogical level," and the significance of "an action or a gesture" to reveal the spiritual meaning of a story. Readers may also want to track down and read Ragen's Ph.D. dissertation, "The Motions of Grace: Flannery O'Connor's Typology" completed in 1987 at Princeton University. R. Neil Scott / Middle Tennessee State University

Ragen's study, along with works such as Jon Lance Bacon's *Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture*, locates the Georgia author within broad patterns of American cultural history. Ragen grants O'Connor's interpretation of her work as an incarnational art. Through a series of clever close reads of *Wise Blood* and short stories such as "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Ragen shows how O'Connor inscribes her religious meanings on one of postwar America's defining technologies: the car. Ragen looks to O'Connor's personal library, letters, and reading habits to locate her in a mid-century tradition of Catholic pop culture criticism typified by Marshall McLuhan, whose book *The Mechanical Bride* O'Connor much admired. Writing from the perspective of American Studies, Ragen argues that O'Connor focuses on cars to critique the myth of the American Adam, a pervasive American myth typified by those self-made men that populate not only American literature but also the advertisements and products of American consumer culture as well. With its combination of original research and detailed critical surveys (and very readable prose), Ragen's book will interest not only O'Connor scholars but also students seeking a good review of the field of American Studies in general. You do not need to be an academic to enjoy Ragen's book either; if you are an O'Connor fan, reading Ragen's study will broaden your mind and give you a new appreciation of O'Connor's fiction. This one-of-a-kind study is highly Recommended for all of O'Connor's admirers. Doug Davis Gordon College

In 1999 I completed a dissertation on Flannery O'Connor and I found this to be one of about 10 books that were particularly helpful. (I believe that I have read over 50 books on O'Connor). Brian Ragen writes clearly and thoughtfully and sympathetically with O'Connor as an author and O'Connor as a "cradle" Catholic. This is a book for any college graduate as it is blessedly free of the jargon that has swamped the field of literature of late. It is a critical study, and thus demands that the reader follow arguments and have a good knowledge of O'Connor, but for any reader in that category, the book is extremely rewarding. I consider this a sort of "entry-level" critical study, and one that can be read by a non-specialist. Once you've read O'Connor, this is a good places to enter into the world of O'Connor criticism.