Marilynne Robinson’s review of this new O’Connor book (really an unedited—by O’Connor– journal written in a spiral notebook when she was but 20 years old and enrolled in the Iowa Writer’s Workshop) is both stimulating and revealing. Robinson was an inspired choice for the job by the editors of the NYT Book Review.

Excerpts–

“It is the religious sensibility reflected in this journal that makes it as eloquent on the subject of creativity as it is on the subject of prayer. O’Connor’s awareness of her gifts gives her a special kind of interest in them. Having concluded one early entry by asking the Lord to help her “with this life that seems so treacherous, so disappointing,” she begins the next entry: ‘Dear God, tonight it is not disappointing because you have given me a story. Don’t let me ever think, dear God, that I was anything but the instrument for…