Why Do the Heathen Rage? (novel)

First Edition cover 2024

Why Do the Heathen Rage? is an incomplete novel by the American author Flannery O'Connor. The manuscript was edited and assembled by Jessica Hooten Wilson and published in 2024 by Brazos Press under the title, Flannery O'Connor's Why Do the Heathen Rage? A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress.

History

A year before O'Connor's death, a fragment first appeared as "Why Do the Heathens Rage?" in the July 1963 edition of Esquire, which was devoted to writers' works-in-progress. Above the fragment was the editorial note, "Flannery O'Connor's first two novels were Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away--her third novel is as yet untitled, and she says it may be years before it's finished. This excerpt is from the beginning section." The same fragment appeared in O'Connor's The Complete Stories (1971) and in her Library of America Collected Works (1988).

In her Introduction to her adaptation of the novel, Jessica Hooten Wilson, a professor at Pepperdine University and the author of several books about Christianity and literature, explains that in 1970, Georgia College and State University acquired 378 typed and hand-edited pages of the unfinished manuscript, which she began examining in 2009. Since O'Connor left no outline or indication of how the action of the novel would unfold, Wilson made "editorial choices" about how to present the episodes to a reader.

Characters and plot

The fragments revolve around Walter Tilman, a twenty-eight year-old man recovering from an unnamed illness who lives with his parents on a farm named Meadow Oaks. One of Walter's hobbies is writing letters to public figures. He has written to Oona Gibbs, an activist at a commune named Fellowship Farm, but has done so in the guise of a Black man in order to mock her aspirations and desire for social justice. Oona does not know that Walter has misrepresented himself in this way and writes back an enthusiastic letter about her life and aims as a reformer. Walter further leads her to believe he is a Black farmer by taking a number of photographs of the farm at Meadow Oaks and becomes convinced that she will come to visit him. However, after a period in which he feels guilty for his actions, Walter sends a telegram to Oona, insisting that she not come to Meadow Oakes. O'Connor lets the reader know what Walter does not: that Oona is already on her way.

Other fragments detail Oona's childhood and mother, Walter's father's stroke, Walter's baptism, and Walter noticing his estranged aunt at a lecture.

Reception

Publishers Weekly noted, "Wilson does a great service in resurrecting one of O’Connor’s lesser-known works." Writing in the National Catholic Register, Kathy Schiffer praised Wilson's commentary, which "offers so much that the reader may not have known." In Our Sunday Visitor, Kenneth Craycraft argues that offering these fragments as an "unfinished novel" is misleading, but also calls it an "important book" and praises Wilson for her "service to O’Connor readers in providing us with this brief but penetrating study of an artist struggling to find a particular kind of voice."