Prayer Journal

A Prayer Journal by Flannery O'Connor, 40 pages

In 1946, 21 year old Flannery O'Connor moved from her home in Georgia to Iowa City, with the intention to study journalism.  Instead, she fell in love with writing.  In the meantime, she struggled to maintain and mature in her faith while living in an alien environment that was largely hostile to it.  A Prayer Journal is a short journal in which she carried on her end of a conversation with God over the course of 21 months, during which time she also began writing Wise Blood.

The work is sometimes revealing, somewhat tragic, and occasionally funny (one is reminded of O'Connor's sharp wit when she regrets having over-criticized a fellow participant in a writing workshop).  It feels a bit uneasy intruding into the intimate spiritual space of someone who was never comfortable with attention, but was, as these pages demonstrate, guiltily aware of her own desire for fame.

If this hadn't been written by Flannery O'Connor, it would be uninteresting - it was, after all, never intended for publication.  As it is, it is a valuable resource for anyone interested in her or her writing, although no doubt less valuable than Habit of Being.  The book includes a transcript of the journal entries along with a mimeographed reproduction of the pages themselves.