Along with Walker Percy, Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, all Catholic writers of the 1950s and 1960s, Flannery O’Connor and her life and work are examined in a history and biography of the four seekers of salvation, Paul Elie’s The Life You Save May Be Your Own. Perhaps none really found it, but their search became the common currency of the turbulent times where American attitudes toward war, religion, race, and power were in turbulence. The Life You Save May Be Your Own looks at the major writing of these four literary and social change agents. This is not traditional literary criticism, certainly not the critical outlook that dismisses the life of the writer as unimportant to the work. Rather, the social milieu and the very personal lives of each of the writers is examined with a sharp eye. Passing through the lives of the four writers and brought into focus in this book are many of the thoughtful and prominent religious and social activists of the age. In some way these writers knew, influenced and were affected by the Dalai Lama, Mother Theresa, the Berrigan Brothers, Pope John XXIII, Shelby Foote, Evelyn Waugh, as well as the civil rights workers, beat poets, peace activists, hippies, poverty workers, and other social advocates of change. Mostly, as all four taught us, change always comes from within.
Two Strikes 