When celebrated American novelist and short story writer Flannery O'Connor died at the age of thirty-nine in 1964, she left behind an unfinished third novel titled "Why Do the Heathen Rage"? It was deemed unpublishable. For the past ten-plus years, Jessica Hooten Wilson has explored the 378 pages of material.
Wilson that decade transcribed, organized, and compiled everything from the novel to take a glimpse into what O'Conner planned to publish. She introduces O'Connor's novel to the public for the first time and imagines what directions as well as themes O'Connor might have taken.
Jessica Hooten Wilson is Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University, author, professor, and speaker.
(Encore airing of this interview from February 2024.)
