The Violent Bear It Away is Flannery O'Connor's second novel, written in 1960. I've never read anything by O'Connor before, and didn't know anything about this book before I started reading it, but so far it's pretty interesting. The protagonist is a fourteen year old boy named Francis Marion Tarwater who, when he was a baby, was kidnapped by his crazy great uncle who lived out in the wilderness and believed himself to be a prophet. A prophet who sells moonshine on the side. Francis never attends public school- Mason runs off a social worker and fools a truant officer into thinking Francis is simpleminded. He teaches Francis himself, intending that the lad will one day take over being the prophet- Elisha to his Elijah, as it were- although Francis, despite this upbringing, is never really sold on the idea. Then, one day, Francis' great uncle Mason dies while sitting at the breakfast table (he's 84) and, leaving him there, Francis attempts to dig a grave for him. A voice inside him is telling Francis to leave and go to the city; he knows his uncle whom he was stolen from lives there. While labouring at the grave, a black couple arrive to buy moonshine and, being told that Mason is dead, try to comfort the teen who is having none of it. He gruffly takes their jug to the still to fill it but, once there, decides to drink the moonshine himself; he gets drunk and passes out, later found there by the fellow who'd been waiting for his booze. He takes it upon himself to finish digging the grave and bury Uncle Mason while Francis is in a drunken stupor. When the boy comes to, he decides that he is, indeed, going to head for the city. Thinking that his great uncle's body is still in the shack they lived in, Francis sets fire to it and then, as it burns, heads to the main road where he hitches a ride with a traveling salesman who is driving to the city where his uncle lives.
That's as far as I got yesterday... more to come later after I read more of it this week.