book review: A Good Hard Look by Ann Napolitano
The basics: A Good Hard Look takes a good hard look at Milledgeville, Georgia and its quirky cast of characters, including Flannery O'Connor. My thoughts: It's no secret I often adore novels with real people as characters. A fictional look at Flannery O'Connor and the town of Milledgeville (and likely the inspiration for some of her own fiction)? I was sold. Imagine my surprise when Flannery was my least favorite part of this novel. She was fine, but either Napolitano was afraid to emphasize the character of Flannery or she assumed her readers would bring that knowledge to this novel. There's certainly an argument for either, but in this novel, the rest of the ensemble shined. The novel opens with the wedding of Cookie and Melvin, a New Yorker moving to Milledgeville to make his wife happy. Cookie hated New York and wanted to come home. Melvin's parents are dead, and he is wealthy enough to have options. Cookie has a firm dislike of Flannery, and Melvin initi...