This 1995 volume of critical essays on Wise Blood, Flannery O\047Connor\047s explosive first novel, not only questions our understanding of the \047Southern Gothic,\047 but launches an inquiry into the nature and history of O\047Connor\047s critical reputation. Perceived as a \047classic\047 American writer despite the double setbacks of being a woman and a twentieth-century author, O\047Connor continues to speak with striking clarity and disturbing vision to successive generations. Michael Kreyling\047s introduction explores the nature and history of O\047Connor\047s literary reputation using quotations from her letters, works, and from critical reviews and articles covering the history of her presence in the canon. Robert Brinkmeyer Jr, who has written on O\047Connor from a more or less traditional theological view in the past, writes a re-evaluative essay from that point of view. Patricia Yaeger\047s feminist/psychoanalytical essay explores the construction of the narrative voice in Wise Blood. James Mellard links O\047Connor and Lacan, exploring territory that O\047Connor herself found dangerous and irresistible: psychology and psychoanalysis. Jon Lance Bacon places O\047Connor in the milieu of her times, American popular culture of the 1950s.