{"id":84478,"date":"2015-04-10T14:54:42","date_gmt":"2015-04-10T18:54:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=84478"},"modified":"2015-04-15T09:37:25","modified_gmt":"2015-04-15T13:37:25","slug":"anatomy-of-a-cover-the-complete-works-of-flannery-oconnor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2015\/04\/10\/anatomy-of-a-cover-the-complete-works-of-flannery-oconnor\/","title":{"rendered":"Anatomy of a Cover: The Complete Works of Flannery O\u2019Connor"},"content":{"rendered":"

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At the time of her death, at age thirty-nine, Flannery O\u2019Connor had published only two novels, thirty-one short stories, and a small book\u2019s worth of literary criticism and critical essays. \u201cIn most English classes,\u201d she once wrote, \u201cthe short story has become a kind of literary specimen to be dissected.\u201d O\u2019Connor, of course, was referring to her readers experiencing<\/em> the work, not picking it apart in a writers\u2019 workshop. That same principle drove Charlotte Strick<\/a> and June Glasson<\/a> in their recent redesign of the covers of O\u2019Connor\u2019s five\u00a0books. Strick, the former art director of Farrar, Straus and Giroux and current coprinciple of the design firm Strick&Williams (as well as the art editor of The Paris Review<\/em>), approached Glasson, an illustrator, about the project in 2013. Four\u00a0of the five\u00a0redesigned jackets have been released, with the last coming next month.<\/p>\n

Glasson and Strick met through happenstance\u2014a journey that began at a doctor\u2019s office. \u201cYears ago,\u201d Strick says, \u201cwhile absentmindedly flipping through a magazine in my doctor\u2019s waiting room, I serendipitously stumbled upon a piece about June. I thought her work had a strange, seductive and unique beauty all its own.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2012, Strick commissioned Glasson to create illustrations to accompany an essay by author Rich Cohen about French-American pirate Jean Lafitte and 1800s piracy in New Orleans, which appeared in The Paris Review<\/em> no. 201<\/a>. This collaboration triggered Strick\u2019s art-director instinct, and she returned to Glasson when it came time to reenvision O\u2019Connor\u2019s works. \u201cJune is capable of imbuing her paintings with a curious maleficence,\u201d Strick told me. \u201cShe seemed up for the task of tackling O\u2019Connor.\u201d <\/p>\n

Book jackets are a more complicated affair, however, and require, as Strick says, \u201ca grand leap of faith.\u201d \u201cChoosing the right designer or artist for a project is purely instinctual,\u201d she explained. \u201cIf you believe they can do it, and you sense their mutual excitement for the assignment, then it\u2019s up to you to guide them toward the vision you have for the project. That\u2019s what makes for the best work. With the O\u2019Connor, I never doubted my choice of Glasson. When it turned out that she was also a real O\u2019Connor fan, I knew for certain we had the right artist on the job.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember the stories vividly,\u201d Glasson recalls, \u201cespecially \u2018A Good Man is Hard To Find\u2019 and \u2018Good Country People.\u2019 They\u2019re dark, absurd, and comic, and bring her characters to such vivid life. I remember, in particular, the prosthetic-leg-stealing bible salesman from \u2018Good Country People.\u2019\u2009\u201d<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor\u2014and Carson McCullers before her\u2014was a keen practitioner of the Southern grotesque, which she dosed with tales about faith and religion. \u201cFlannery\u2019s\u00a0characters occupy these dark Southern worlds,\u201d Glasson says. \u201cShe vividly portrays the spaces and landscapes her characters occupy. Visually, I think I imagined a dark hazy landscape, not an overly romantic Southern one, but one that is slightly off, faded, decaying, one that I\u2019ve glimpsed on road trips through the South.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew right away what medium I wanted to use,\u201d she adds. \u201cI work a lot in inks and watercolors, and I knew that I wanted to try to use the loose, washy nature of the medium to capture the mood of her work.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a jumping-off point, Strick sent Glasson a copy of Milton Glaser\u2019s famous Wise Blood<\/em> paperback cover from the sixties. This served as a brainstorming exercise, and the inspiration for her entire catalog, starting with the award-winning Complete Stories<\/em> collection.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne afternoon,\u201d Strick says, \u201cSean McDonald [executive editor at FSG] showed up in my office door clutching a 1971 edition of O\u2019Connor\u2019s Complete Stories<\/em> with a jacket by\u00a0Charles Skaggs. We knew that Glasson should also contemporize this vintage cover as well\u2014while still keeping the hypnotic, sooty Glaser\u00a0Wise Blood<\/em> jacket in mind. In the process of re-creating The Complete Stories<\/em> in June\u2019s own style, she and I saw how it could influence the others to come. We began sending one another ideas for other organic \u2018frames\u2019 that would be original to each title. This provided a template of sorts for four out of five of the covers.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n