Digging Deep with Flannery O'Connor

Photograph of Jessica Hooten Wilson by Eric Stoner

Jessica Hooten Wilson often speaks of Flannery O’Connor as a writer whose work refuses sentimentality in favor of a bracing, redemptive realism, one that exposes the brokenness of humanity while pointing, often shockingly, toward grace. She emphasizes how O’Connor’s deeply-rooted Christian vision shapes her grotesque characters and violent narratives, not as ends in themselves but as moments of revelation—where pride is stripped away and the possibility of transformation breaks through.

In a March salon at Fieldstead, Hooten Wilson highlighted O’Connor’s conviction that literature should unsettle rather than comfort, awakening readers to spiritual truths they might otherwise ignore, and how O'Connor's prophetic voice continues to challenge modern assumptions about morality, suffering, and divine mercy.

Jessica Hooten Wilson is the Fletcher Jones Endowed Chair of Great Books at Pepperdine University. She is the author of several books, including Flannery O’Connor’s Why Do the Heathen Rage?: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at a Work in Progress (Brazos Press, January 23, 2024); Reading for the Love of God: How to Read as a Spiritual Practice (Brazos Press, 2023); Scandal of Holiness: Renewing Your Imagination in the Company of Literary Saints (Brazos Press, 2022) which received a Christianity Today 2023 Award of Merit (Culture & the Arts) and a Midwest Book Review 2023 Silver Book Award (Nonfiction – Religion/Philosophy). 

She has received numerous fellowships, grants, and awards, most recently a large grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. and Wake Forest University for her project, Cultivating Virtue via Great Books Pathway Through the Core Curriculum.

Photographs by Eric Stoner, www.availablelight1.com