Relationships Talk

Offset might be a victim of his own demise, but he sure as hell isn’t going to shoulder the blame all by himself. You’re caught up with the story. Cardi B sends out a press release confirming their split, and before you know it, all the dominoes come falling down one after the other, prompting no reaction whatsoever from Offset. To be fair, there wasn’t much he could say – he was caught dead in his tracks with the cheat mode settings on full blast. So why is Offset throwing the rest of the groomsmen under the bus, instead of accepting his faults?

Offset aired the words “N****s Ain’t Slick” on his Instagram storyboard, perhaps as a way of admitting defeat. Although he left some room for interpretation, I can’t “unsee” an element of self-sabotage in his humor. Let that be a lesson to the groomsmen who lie ahead in the order: “you’re never too smart to weasel your way out of a Dragnet.“

Whether or not Offset chooses to show remorse in the public discourse, the split does appear to have its perks too. For one, Offset is free to sleep around “willy-nilly” like a rabbit on the moon – and secondly, there’s an unsubstantiated rumor circulating the Web that Offset is on the “right side” of a prenuptial agreement worth up to $50 million.

(Book cover via Amazon/Background: Pixabay)Newly released letters between the writers chronicle marital woes, mystical insights, and excellent editing advice.

The Southern Catholic literary pantheon may have a new elder stateswoman enshrined soon, if Christine Flanagan has anything to say about it.

Associate professor of English at Philadelphia’s University of the Sciences, Flanagan is the editor of the recently released Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Caroline Gordon, published by the University of Georgia Press. While O’Connor’s status as the preeminent author of Southern Catholic literature won’t be changing anytime soon, Flanagan has given us many reasons to believe that Gordon helped get her there. Indeed, Flanagan makes a sensible case that Gordon’s own fiction — long considered second fiddle to the works of O’Connor, Walker Percy, and other Southern Catholic mavens — deserves a fresh valuation.

Objective, detailed, and downright polite, Flanagan never comes right out and makes any of these claims explicitly. In printing the letters and providing enlightening headnotes for each, her approach is for the most part refreshingly free of ideology, especially for an academic book. It reads more like Arthur Hobson Quinn — 70 years later, still the definitive biographer of Poe — than any critical theory flavor-of-the-month selection. This method will serve Flanagan well, as O’Connor scholars tend to be the types who can quote Aquinas’s Summa at will (as O’Connor herself did) or Bakhtin’s theory of the “once-occurrent Being-as-event” — they rarely suffer philosophical dabblers.

Flanagan does, however, draw evidence-based conclusions and make appropriate judgments, just as Paul Elie did in his influential historiographical omnibus on O’Connor, Dorothy Day, et al. in The Life You Save May Be Your Own. Acknowledging Elie, Flanagan uses the method he popularized in that book: In her headnotes, she places primary and secondary source materials about both women that provide historical perspective as well as biographical and literary context. This helps readers understand the interactions between the writers and the many facets of their developing relationship.

What we have, then, is not just a collection of letters, which would be valuable in and of itself as only six of the 100-plus here have been previously published in full, but an academically rendered narrative of just how those letters unfolded in Gordon’s and O’Connor’s careers and personal lives.

And that, alas, is where things get messy for Gordon.

One reason that Gordon’s full letters to O’Connor haven’t seen the light of day until now, Flanagan delicately implies, is that they detail, from the embattled wife’s perspective, Gordon’s marital problems. Gordon’s longtime husband, Allen Tate, one of the most prominent names in early- to mid-20th-century American literature and criticism, apparently cheated on Gordon regularly; got drunk even more regularly; hid his financial expenditures and left them behind for Gordon to pay as he traipsed overseas; and in later years tended to treat his speaking and teaching obligations more as invitations to Gatsby-style soirées than as opportunities to publish (which might’ve helped him pay off some of his family’s obligations).

Reading of Gordon’s obvious grief and profound desolation over these indiscretions (and not one, but two divorces from Tate) is difficult, especially as Gordon attempts to deal with them by taking on excessive work and staying busy. O’Connor summed it up with her typical Southern politeness: “What that woman has is Vitality.”

The letters tell of no mere psychological drama, however. Having exhausted natural or reasonable means of healing, Gordon was convinced that something diabolical was afoot: “I am convinced that [Allen’s] enemy is supernatural and that only supernatural help can save [him].” O’Connor remarked to a mutual friend: “It doesn’t look like you can do anything for them but pray.”

Not surprisingly, in the particularly troubling times of Gordon’s marriage, O’Connor found Gordon’s advice on her work somewhat unreliable. When Tate and Gordon had separated in the fall of 1958, for instance, Gordon wrote an essay about O’Connor’s novel Wise Blood that “made significant errors.” O’Connor, says Flanagan, “struggled to navigate her response to Gordon’s mistakes.” More significantly, Flanagan — again with a light touch — hints that Gordon’s marital unrest might help explain one of the big mysteries facing O’Connor scholars: Whatever happened to Gordon’s letters about O’Connor’s masterpiece, The Violent Bear It Away? To date, they haven’t been located, and we have evidence that O’Connor sought others’ advice in revising that mysteriously entrancing book. As Flanagan puts it, O’Connor thought Gordon’s “support” for the novel “rang false.” Flanagan contextualizes this flagging enthusiasm by detailing another failure of Gordon’s just a month previous: She had seriously botched her introduction to the French edition of Wise Blood, to the point where O’Connor herself severely revised it. “I hope this won’t be the straw that broke the camel’s back,” wrote O’Connor to a friend, wondering whether her drastic cut of Gordon’s introduction would damage their relationship. The extreme strain Gordon was experiencing because of her marital unrest had deeply affected her literary and critical judgment.

Still, O’Connor stood by Gordon, through letters and prayer, despite O’Connor’s own deteriorating health. One of O’Connor’s most literary and engaging correspondents, Elizabeth Hester (known to many of O’Connor’s readers by the pseudonym “A.”) at one point got frustrated with Gordon. Flanagan writes:

When Hester continued to criticize Gordon in her letters, O’Connor agreed — “Caroline is wildly mixed up” — but she defended Gordon once again: “The harshness with which you speak of Caroline is not justified.”

Flanagan is exactly right to quote these lines, but I wish she had gone just a bit further, as the subsequent lines in O’Connor’s original letter are some of the most spiritually and relationally enlightening in all of O’Connor’s corpus:

. . . is not justified. She may be basically irreligious but we are not judged by what we are basically. We are judged by how hard we use what we have been given. Success means nothing to the Lord, nor gracefulness. She tries and tries violently and has a great deal to struggle against and to overcome. The violent bear it away.

Especially in light of this new volume of letters — in which we read page after page of Gordon’s admiration for Catholic churches in Rome; her dating of letters with the Catholic saint or feast of the day; her constant requests for intercessory prayer and promises of prayers for others — O’Connor’s assessment of her friend as “basically irreligious” strikes the reader with nothing less than mystical force. How in the world did O’Connor see that Gordon — who clearly admired the Church, thought of herself as an orthodox believer, and often attended daily Masses, among other things — was in fact what we might call a practical spiritualist? In other words, was Gordon someone who intellectually admired the rituals and culture of the Church without actually integrating them into her whole existence, body and soul?

This ratification of O’Connor’s unusual spiritual vision is part of the great value of this volume for O’Connor scholars and enthusiasts. About a decade ago, Lorraine Murray’s Abbess of Andalusia posited that O’Connor had embraced an ordinary vocation with extraordinary holiness. Free of pietism and deftly argued, the book made some surprising moves — arguing, for instance, that O’Connor gradually, not immediately, grew to embrace the full implications of black civil rights. Not the least of Murray’s eye-opening insights was that O’Connor may have had a gift for reading souls. Intriguing then, Murray’s proposition seems downright convincing now, especially in light of O’Connor’s high praise of an “irreligious” Gordon.

I don’t mean to imply that this book is all Southern drama, or now irrefutable proof of O’Connor’s cause for canonization. While it may be those things, it is also flat-out funny in parts, as one has every right to expect of two learned Southern ladies who understand each other and their culture, and who craft stories to shake up their indolent readers. Advising O’Connor to move the most important element of a sentence to the end, where it will remain in a reader’s memory, Gordon reminds her that the reader is “the laziest and stupidest of God’s creatures.” In another place, Gordon recounts a harrowing car ride when a priest was driving. O’Connor’s response is one of her typically cheeky, drawling maxims: “Never ride with the clergy if you are not immediately ready to meet your maker.”

With all that Flanagan’s volume has to offer, one can be only more excited about the upcoming Good Things out of Nazareth: The Uncollected Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Friends, edited by Southern-literature expert Benjamin Alexander. Expected late next year, the book promises an intimate view of those O’Connor brought even more closely into her confidences.

In the meantime, Flanagan’s extensive research and graceful, detailed notes will give O’Connor fans of all stripes new material on which to ruminate — and it may just inspire a few professors to add Gordon’s Malefactors to their American literature syllabi.

Happy anniversary to Trista and Ryan Sutter! 

The Bachelorette couple — and first pair to marry from the Bachelor franchise — celebrated 15 years of marriage on Thursday. Trista and Ryan couldn’t help but honor the accomplishment with adorable pics, including one from their 2003 wedding. 

“Fifteen years ago, I was in a dream … my wedding day. A beautiful day with a beautiful man to start a beautiful life,” Trista captioned a sweet photo of her and Ryan after saying “I do.” “Thank you for loving me for me … not fame or glory or just to ‘win’ that final rose. You and our family are the best part of our story and I can’t wait to see what the next 15 years brings and the 15 after that and the 15 after that.”

Ryan, meanwhile, posted a pic of himself and Trista from a recent hiking trip. 

“In 15 years, we’ve been bad, ugly, but never indifferent,” he wrote. “No matter what, we’ve never stopped caring – about each other, our family or our lives together. I suppose that’s our secret? Thank you @tristasutter for showing me what real love means, for putting up with me and for always caring. I love you forever and ever.”

Trista and Ryan met while filming the first season of The Bachelorette in 2002, and tied the knot in a televised wedding the next year. They share two children, son Maxwell and daughter Blakesley, and solidified their commmitment to each other in a vow renewal ceremony in 2014. 

The blonde beauty opened up about how she and Ryan have made it work while chatting with ET in February. 

“Like any relationship, we have ebbs and flows,” she confessed. “I think it’s just a matter of sticking to it and not giving in to the doubts and the worry and thinking, ‘Oh, we can’t do this anymore,’ when you’re at your low points, and really being excited and living in the moment at the high points.”

Trista added that level of commitment is key to making a relationship that comes out of The Bachelor work. “You don’t give up, and you put the effort in,” she noted. “I think that’s the biggest piece of advice and the secret to our success, is that we just don’t give in. We don’t give up. We stay true to our commitment and keep our relationship a priority. Especially, I think, it’s important in that whirlwind right after the show if you focus on each other.”

See more in the video below, and join ET’s Bachelor Nation Facebook group here. 

RELATED CONTENT: 

Original ‘Bachelorette’ Trista Sutter Says This Was ‘Bachelor’ Arie’s ‘Huge’ Mistake (Exclusive)

Trista Sutter Recalls Seizing on Top of 8-Year-Old Daughter Blakesley: ‘She Was Traumatized’

Former ‘Bachelorette’ Trista Sutter Hospitalized After Seizure: ‘Be Thankful for Your Life and Blessings’

Related Gallery

Speaking with Elle magazine in a new profile that separates the real Jennifer Aniston from the false persona generated by years of tabloid stories, the Dumplin’ actress opened up more than she has in recent times, and bestowed some incredible life lessons based on her personal experiences.

Perhaps the most surprising advice came while discussing a topic that’s frequent fodder for her gossip-column counterpart: her previous marriages to Brad Pitt and Justin Theroux. “My marriages, they’ve been very successful, in [my] personal opinion,” Aniston said. “And when they came to an end, it was a choice that was made because we chose to be happy, and sometimes happiness didn’t exist within that arrangement anymore.”

Her sound outlook — choosing happiness — is further solidified by her blatant rejection of fear-based decisions. “At the end of it, this is our one life and I would not stay in a situation out of fear. Fear of being alone. Fear of not being able to survive. To stay in a marriage based on fear feels like you’re doing your one life a disservice,” she said. “When the work has been put in and it doesn’t seem that there’s an option of it working, that’s okay. That’s not a failure.”

Although she got the reality check through her marriages, the thought process is applicable to any relationship. Going through a breakup is a totally normal part of life, and it doesn’t mean anyone’s failed at because they’ve reached that stage — it just means that there’s more happiness to be had elsewhere.

However “powerful,” “incredible,” and “admirable” a happy ending may seem, Aniston recognizes that “everybody’s path is different.” And anyway, as she said at another point in the interview, “Why do we want a happy ending? How about just a happy existence? A happy process? We’re all in process constantly.”

Instead of focusing on a “fairy tale” schedule that dictates when a woman should get married and have children, Aniston has focused her energy on developing sincere friendships, which have allowed her to fulfill most of the roles a traditional path would have offered. “We always joke that we raised each other, we mothered each other, we sistered each other, we’ve been kids to each other.”

It’s a “glass-half-full” reality she created intentionally by “always being open. Allowing myself to feel what I feel,” she said. “What brings me happiness? I have a great job. I have a great family. I have great friends. I have no reason to feel otherwise. If I did, I would need to go get an attitude shift, a perspective shift.”

So, the next time you find yourself defining your worth based on society’s outdated standards, do like Aniston does. Ask yourself, “What brings me happiness?”