The Malefactors

by Caroline Gordon

The Malefactors so perfectly captures the enervated carnality and marmoreal frigidity of the Lost Generation, and the ensuing need and the desire for meaning, that Flannery O’Connor called it “undoubtedly the most serious and successful fictional treatment of a conversion by an American writer to date.”

Tom and Vera Claiborne have settled at Blencker’s Bridge with a motley assortment of friends, family, and literati. Despite life at Blencker’s Bridge being “a party every day,” a deepening sense of disaffection develops among its inhabitants: Tom, frustrated by his poetic impotency, takes a mistress; his cousin and his wife offer psychiatric theories and treatments; and Vera throws herself into farming and animal husbandry—all seeking to find what once was lost.

Genres: Novels

338 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

Caroline Gordon was an American novelist and literary critic who, while still in her thirties, received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1932 and an O. Henry Award in 1934.

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Flannery O’Connor writes about this book multiple times in her letters (The Habit of Being). She was friend to Caroline Gordon and admirer of her work. My library system had no copies of the book, but then I discovered that Cluny had done a recent (beautiful) reprinting. I’m glad I had the opportunity to read this. It took a long while for me to get into it and I think I would have been more lost without having read Dorothy Day’s autobiography this year. But in the end I was engaged. On the whole, a unique novel and conversion story.


From an article by Br. Finbar Kantor, O.P.:
“For all who are themselves concerned with the conduct of life, Caroline Gordon’s novels, short stories, and criticism offer a clear reflection of reality.”

[Caleb Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is weird. Flannery O’Connor apparently really liked this book when it was first published, which is what made me pick it up. It has been out of print for a while but the good folks at Cluny Media did a nice republishing of it.

It is essentially a conversion story. It took me a while to get into, and at times I thought of putting it down, and for a while I did. Some will find the ending unsatisfying. I however think that on a second reading this novel might get five stars.

Some people need to see true love and be truly loved in order to love. Basic, but that is my take away from this novel, and it remains ever true.

[Drew Norwood · Rating 5 out of 5]

“We become what we look on longest and most passionately.”

4.5 stars. The Malefactors, written after Caroline Gordon's conversion, is the story of a man's unwitting search for God's grace (and also his search for the mainspring of true art) but it is also the story of marital union/schism/and reunion. It is filled with characters based on Caroline Gordon's own life (e.g., Allen Tate, Dorothy Day, Hart Crane). Very Roman Catholic at times, but otherwise really good.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caroline Gordon is an insightful novelist and first rate at the craft. She brilliant, a mentor to Flannery O'Connor and Walker Percy. Malefactors was deep and fun. Sharply observant of human behavior.

[NDH · Rating 1 out of 5]

The part about artificial insemination and cattle breeding was interesting; “Lost Generation: the Sequel”, not so much.