When she was twenty-one years old, far from home and as yet uncelebrated, Flannery O’Connor began keeping a journal to God. For the many who were moved by reading her correspondence with friends and admirers—a correspondence collected in The Habit of Being—the first publication of O’Connor’s journal in the September 16, 2013 edition of The New Yorker is a chance to revisit the workings of her mind. Much will seem familiar. Always a seeker of knowledge, she nevertheless exhibits her... Read more
My mother’s quavering voicemail was right: I hadn’t called in a long time. I justified my neglect with the assurance that I’d called on her birthday, I’d called on Mother’s Day, I’d made my dutiful calls even though I suspected she was mad at me. I made them and she didn’t answer. I hadn’t called in a long time, but goddammit, neither had she. My mother’s tears always put a knot in my gut. Once as a boy I fell... Read more
“It’s over, bitch.” That’s how she put it in no uncertain terms as the credits rolled at the end of the series finale. It was the voice of Jesse Pinkman that she chose, the show’s outlaw Robin to Walter White’s cancer-clad Batman on a self-destructive mission to save his family from financial ruin at the cost of such greater ruin. She being the bitch, of course—or, rather, the son of one in the best sense of that term. After six... Read more
It came to me one quiet afternoon, a couple weeks after we were home from the hospital, my newborn son asleep on my chest, the flicker of memory sharp and quick: I see my mother’s mouth wagging, furious, the garbage can full to overflowing, my brother’s task left undone. “Are you stupid? Is that it?” she screams, stepping toward my brother, who can’t be more than eleven, his mouth torn open by sobs, the light passing through the windows flat,... Read more
Guest Post by Paige Eve Chant Not too long ago, just as spring was turning over into summer, I awoke with a slight numbness in the fingers of my right hand. The morning was early yet, the sky outside still dark, and as I wrote, my fingers were a little slower than usual to find their keys. By the end of the day, I was fumbling in the most ordinary of tasks, like opening a jar of peanut butter or... Read more
In her memoir, Pieces of Someday, my friend and periodic “Good Letters” guest writer Jan Vallone shares the story of the time her writing instructor—“an aging Clint Eastwood” named Professor Véreux—questioned the integrity of her writing. After class one day, he pulled Jan aside to discuss her most recent assignment one-on-one. “I’m returning your memoir,” he said. “The ending is dishonest.” Of course, since the piece Jan had submitted was a work of non-fiction—a memoir—I found Professor Véreux’s conclusion questionable... Read more
My wife Liz and I met in a bar. For Liz it was in defiance of her father’s admonition, “Whatever you do, don’t meet a Melungeon in a bar.” While technically she did meet a Melungeon in a bar, it wasn’t quite like that; we were both at a going-away party for a mutual friend, a poet who had taken a teaching job on the other side of the United States, in San Francisco. Last Friday night Liz and I... Read more
By Meredith Holladay Guest Post Today I continue yesterday’s conversation with Linford Detweiler about place, songwriting, the sacred, and what’s next for him, his wife Karin, and their band Over the Rhine. Meredith Holladay: What’s the hardest part about making music as a married couple? Linford Detweiler: Probably just the incessant nature of sharing a common dream, being an entrepreneurial couple: Your gig never really goes away completely. You carry it with you always. But I should counter by saying... Read more
Guest Post By Meredith Holladay September 3 marked the release of Over the Rhine’s newest album Meet Me at the Edge of the World, a double album of nineteen songs. Karin Bergquist and Linford Detweiler have been making music together since 1989, the same year Image Journal was founded. Both have a rich identity of exploring the outskirts of art, faith, and mystery. Linford and Karin crowd-sourced funding for their previous album, The Long Surrender, the new record, and with... Read more
Reflections on the Jewish High Holidays 5774. On the second day of Rosh Hashanah, I checked my “Good Letters” post of the day before, “Today’s Child Sacrifice,” to see how my numbers were looking. (Yes, I check—obsessively. Thank you, kind readers, who share my posts with others, you whose approval I seek with every refresh. Practice opportunity: restraint.) I found this: a new comment! I scrolled down. From Concerned Citizen: “40 million children have been killed since Roe vs. Wade,... Read more
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