The way Flannery O’Connor overtly despised Black folks, the way she was as racist as could be, had a teasing and tenacious venom to it. Critics fairly studiously avoided it until the New Yorker published a piece dedicated to O’Connor the bigot in 2020. I spoke to Walter on the phone about it, and he said he was glad. That perhaps people in Savannah would cease treating her like some sort of local saint. I was glad, too, but also I felt that familiar disappointment that a writer who I not only liked, but who I believe understood and explained Southern idiosyncrasy and violence so well, had been
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