Wise Blood

Description

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's astonishing and haunting first novel, is a classic of twentieth-century literature. It is the story of Hazel Motes, a twenty-two-year-old caught in an unending struggle against his inborn, desperate fate. He falls under the spell of a "blind" street preacher named Asa Hawks and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter, Sabbath Lily. In an ironic, malicious gesture of his own non-faith, and to prove himself a greater cynic than Hawks, Motes founds the Church Without Christ, but is still thwarted in his efforts to lose God. He meets Enoch Emery, a young man with "wise blood," who leads him to a mummified holy child and whose crazy maneuvers are a manifestation of Motes's existential struggles. This tale of redemption, retribution, false prophets, blindness, blindings, and wisdom gives us one of the most riveting characters in American fiction.

First Sentence

Hazel Motes sat at a forward angle on the green plush train seat, looking one minute at the window as if he might want to jump out of it, and the next down the aisle at the other end of the car.

Subjects

Other Editions

• Wise Blood: A NovelFarrar, Straus and Giroux2007-03-06
• Wise bloodHarcourt, Brace1952-01-01
• Wise blood.Harcourt, Brace1952-01-01
• Wise bloodNeville Spearman1955-01-01
• Wise blood.Farrar, Straus and Cudahy1962-01-01
• Wise blood.Farrar, Straus and Giroux1962-01-01