A Good Hard Look: A Novel of Flannery O'Connor, Paperback

"An absorbing, old-fashioned tale about how, as in Flannery O'Connor's stories, 'Grace changes a person....And change is painful.'" -- The Washington Post

The celebrated novel from the author of Dear Edward.

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 fianc , 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."

Ann Napolitano is the author of the novels Dear Edward, A Good Hard Look, and Within Arm's Reach. She is also the associate editor of One Story literary magazine. She received an MFA from New York University and has taught fiction writing at Brooklyn College's MFA program, New York University's School of Continuing and Professional Studies, and Gotham Writers Workshop. She lives in Brooklyn with her husband and two children.