"The book was written with zest and, if possible, it should be read that way." Thus Flannery O'Connor on her own extraordinary debut novel, _Wise Blood,_ a volatile black comedy that pits Hazel Motes, army veteran an self-proclaimed prophet of a new religion, against the corrupt preacher Asa Hawkes. Fast-paced, funny, shocking and vividly set, it is a small, sharp, masterpiece of American Southern Gothic.