Coles, Robert - Melvin J. Friedman (review date Fall 1982)

Melvin J. Friedman (review date Fall 1982)

SOURCE: "Robert Coles's South and Other Approaches to Flannery O'Connor," in The Southern Literary Journal, Vol. XV, No. 1, Fall 1982, pp. 120-129.

[In the following review of several publications on Flannery O'Connor, Friedman explains the critical approaches that Coles takes in his Flannery O'Connor's South.]

Robert Coles is Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities at Harvard Medical School. This unorthodox title helps characterize an unconventional career, which has brought Dr. Coles from spirited civil rights marcher in the company of Martin Luther King to author of an overflowing shelf of books which may one day extend in length to Charles W. Eliot's magical five-foot shelf. Coles has in common with Eliot impeccable New England and Harvard credentials. He also has in common with him a discomfort with insularity. Trained as a child psychiatrist, Dr. Coles has crossed over to a variety...

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