As a precocious child, Flannery O'Connor showed signs of brilliance, especially in her cartooning and writing. A self-described "pigeon-toed child with a receding chin and a you-leave-me-alone-or-I'll-bite-you complex," O'Connor changed following the death of her father in 1941. A devout Catholic, O'Connor studied sociology and English Lit at Georgia State to become a journalist. However, that changed too when she was accepted into the prestigious Iowa Writers Workshop.
In her first meeting with the Workshop's director Paul Engle, he could not understand a word through her thick Georgia drawl. So he handed her a pad and she wrote succinctly, "My name is Flannery O'Connor. I am not a journalist. Can I come to the Writers Workshop?" Reading her early work, Engle was most likely swayed by an early draft of her classic short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Immediately, O'Connor became a favored writer among the faculty at Iowa. While some say that she was often aloof and inflexible about her writing. When author/New Agrarian Robert Penn Warren (1947 Pulitzer winner "All The King's Men") criticized one of her short stories – O'Connor made the necessary changes. While she was not a "loud" writer seeking to dominate her class, O'Connor was constantly editing, revising, and altering her works. Seated in the back of the class, the most O'Connor ever expressed in front of everyone was a shy smile or a knowing glance at something amusing. Asked to describe her "presence" in the classroom, Engle could only say, "The dreary chair she sat in glowed."
As part of her thesis for Iowa, O'Connor turned in the first short story she ever had published, 1946's "The Geranium." While the story may be more linear than most O'Connor, "The Geranium" (later revised as both "Getting Home" and "Judgement Day" in 1964 – shortly before her death), possesses several of the quintessential details of her writing. Like Welty and the Southern Literature of its time, we are again dealing with tradition v. change. However, that aspect is not front-and-center. Instead, "The Geranium" is about race and grace.
We meet Old Dudley. His day so far consists of sitting at a window waiting for a neighbor across the street to put out their geranium. The plant being most popular in warm climates clearly reminds Dudley of the South. As O'Connor reveals that Dudley is now living in New York City, his disdain for the level of care and attention the neighbor has for the plant is a definite reference to the fact that this Old Southerner really wanted to stay where he was.
O'Connor skillfully gives us only the necessary details about his present life, not to keep her writing concise but to imply that Dudley is still learning this whole new life in the big city. She reveals that Young Dudley once traveled to Atlanta to see a "picture show" called "Big Town Rhythm." Furthermore, Old Dudley takes comfort in his daydreams of being back down South with Rabie and Lutisha in an old boarding house. So Dudley's explanation about how quickly he agreed to come North and live with his daughter, son-in-law, and their 16-year-old boy makes sense.
On the flip side, it also makes sense that this new dose of reality makes Old Dudley feel trapped. O'Connor keeps the vocabulary of confinement in Dudley's verbiage. His "tongue goes taut" and he compares the vast hallways of repeated doors in the apartment building to a "dog run." When his daughter takes him out, the streets feel like they have no end, and the subway feels like "mixed-up vegetables in soup." Dudley is not just lost in this new environment; he cannot even be alone with his own thoughts ("no place to be where there wasn't nobody else.")
However, O'Connor will not necessarily let us be sympathetic to Dudley. For his dreaded old ways resurface with the sighting of a new neighbor. Now the silence of his duty-bound daughter is broken as she has to tell him that everyone needs to live together and mind their own business. O'Connor has given us a lot to process. Dudley's memories are growing fuzzy (when he "paints" images in his mind, they are often filled with "green blotches" and "brown spots). In his mind, he was once the "man of the house," so he regales himself with the glory of fishing and most importantly, providing.
Given the opportunity to provide for his daughter, she sends him on an errand three floors down. Of course, he misjudges it. In addition to this, he is not made to feel so welcome, either. Entering his old thoughts about bird hunting with Rabie, he is startled by his new neighbor and falls. The new neighbor is so kind and comforting. As he helps Dudley up, he even talks to him about guns. Dudley is embarrassed and ashamed, especially when the neighbor's parting words are "It's a swell place – once you get used to it."
Tears in his eyes and his mind spinning with conflict, Dudley sits down in the window – his only escape from this completely unknown world. As he gazes across the street, he does not see the geranium – that one taste of home. Frustrated and emotional, Dudley gets into it with the neighbor only to discover that his one respite in this complex and foreign destination is six floors below, splayed all over the pavement.
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Mik Davis is the record store manager at T-Bones Records & Cafe in Hattiesburg.
NEW MUSIC This Week
KACEY MUSGRAVES - Deeper Well [LP/CD w ZINE](Mercury) • JUSTIN TIMBERLAKE - Everything I Thought It Was [2LP/CD](RCA) • On these two records, a pair of longtime Pop artists who like to straddle boundary lines pull the yoke back to reveal more about themselves than push their Pop stars higher in the firmament. Musgraves fares the best out of the gate with new confidence in presenting herself not as blindly in love (2018's "Golden Hour" - the best record of that year) or blindsided by it (2021's "Star-Crossed.") "Deeper Well" is about empowerment and self-love - without profusely saying it. Musgraves has never been this intimate about her life (the beautiful title cut) but somehow manages to not overshare. There is something quaint and pretty about her songs (maybe it is inspired by her brilliant duet with Zach Bryan on "I Remember Everything") that hooks you with the song first - then envelopes you in the warm production of Grammy winners Daniel Tashian and Ian Fitchuk. This is the new Folk Rock, Musgraves is building her own Laurel Canyon sound, and yet again - others will follow.
Timberlake dials back his multi-hyphenate status (a little,) on his sixth solo album. While he made his peace with former bandmates (N*SYNC) and collaborators (Timbaland,) "Everything" still feels like it could use a dose of what constitutes the latest wave in Pop. "Drown" sounds a little too close to "Cry Me A River." While the stillborn Hip-Hop/Rock/Gospel mosh that is "Sanctified" is too jam-packed to even reveal its hook, the sincere but calculated "Selfish" has lyrics like a Country song and that mid-tempo ooze that lights up Hot AC radio. We understand Timberlake wrote 100 songs to get to these 18, but "Everything" has shown us nothing so far.
THE BLACK CROWES - Happiness [CLEAR LP/CD](Silver Arrow/The Orchard) • They buried the hatchet and picked up their axes. Chris and Rich Robinson mended their fences and have their first album of new music since 2009. While they are not filled out as the classic band, two Robinsons and producer Jay Joyce toughen up their sound after those loose-limbed hippie years. "Wanting and Waiting" sounds like the Nineties Crowes all over again. That plunky-bass line/rising guitar lift/swishy AC/DC drum build welcomes you back, before a Technicolor "Twice as Hard" style chorus woos you again. The touring band is clearly tough enough, but this one works because the brothers are working together again as co-leaders. The Stones-y "Bedside Manners" is going to make a thrilling show opener as they bring "Happiness" to everyone on the road.
CHARLES LLOYD - The Sky Will Still Be There Tomorrow [LP/CD](Blue Note/UMe) • Saxophonist Charles Lloyd continues to play his mellow but nearly Free Jazz after 50 years of his famous Quartet (Jack DeJohnette, Keith Jarrett, and Cecil McBee) crossed over onto FM radio with "Forest Flower." Joined by pianist Jason Moran, Larry Grenadier on bass, and Brian Blade on drums, "Sky" is his most Coltrane-esque adventure in years. While it does not quite qualify for meditational, the post-Hard-Bop swing mixed with flute and softer chording is more mellow than most Modern Jazz. Lloyd as a bandleader shows no need to rein in his band as their interplay can be fiery ("Booker's Garden") until the 85-year-old Lloyd re-enters to smooth things out again.
MICHAEL MARCAGI - American Romance EP [CD](Warner) • The one-time singer of Heavy Hours is the first out of the gate to follow what we will call "The ZBryan formula." With his tremulant voice soaked in reverb, "Scared to Start" is just rough enough to sound intimate and homemade. The songs are not the best written, but Marcagi - to his credit - knows exactly how to write a chorus that sticks. "The Other Side" is custom-built for commercials and other syncs.
LEDISI - Good Life [CD](BMG Rights Mgmt) • New Orleans' R&B chanteuse Ledisi has been waiting in the wings for far too long. One of the only artists not damned by a series of Adult R&B chart hits, Ledisi brings the real romance to these searing set of Seventies Soul with that Nineties edge. "Perfect Stranger" with Kenny Lattimore wisely lets the pair circle each other over the simmering groove. Ledisi hits some stunning highs that really pump life back into the slow jam. If forced to pick a hit, it is Ledisi's surprising appearance with Butcher Brown (another promising band - just waiting in the wings, check out the stellar "Solar Music.") With all the emphasis on New Soul, Ledisi and Butcher Brown nail the Quiet Storm groove on the smooth "Quality Time." With a voice like Ledisi, "Good Life" is just waiting to brand her the new Anita Baker.
