The Violent Bear It Away by O'Connor, Flannery

New York. 1960. Farrar Straus & Cudahy. 1st American Edition. Honolulu Book Shops Sticker in the Back, Otherwise Very Good in Slightly Worn Dustjacket W/A Few Small Pieces Missing. 243 pages. hardcover. Jacket design by Milton Glaser. FROM THE PUBLISHER - THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY tells the story of Francis Marion Tarwater, an orphan who lives backcountry with his great-uncle in Powderhead, Tennessee. Before the old man dies, he prophesies Tarwater’s fate: the Lord will call him to be a prophet. Another crucial prophecy he makes is to Rayber, his nephew, a schoolteacher, about Rayber’s son, Bishop: ‘Either Tarwater or me is going to baptize that child. If not me in my day, him in his.’ At the old man’s death, little Bishop, thanks to Rayber’s alert opposition, remains unbaptized, and on Tarwater falls the burden of baptizing him. A struggle over Bishop begins between Tarwater and Rayber. The clash between these two temperaments provides some of the funniest episodes in the book, as Rayber exerts himself to the straining point in his sincere desire to rescue Tarwater’s mind from darkness. Yet Tarwater, interiorly, is undergoing a struggle of his own. He does not want to be either prophet or baptist; he shows extraordinary strengths within himself in resisting his fate. The story moves inexorably to its climax and an outcome which neither Rayber nor Tarwater could foresee. inventory #20934