Wise Blood

Wise Blood centers on Hazel Motes, a discharged serviceman who abandons his fundamentalist faith to become a preacher of anti-religion in a Tennessee city, establishing the "Church Without Christ." Motes is a ludicrous and tragic hero who meets a collection of equally grotesque characters. Flannery O'Connor's first novel, published in 1952, is a darkly comic and disturbing book about religious beliefs that was noted for its witty characterizations, ironic symbolism, and use of Southern dialect. The Merriam-Webster Encyclopedia of Literature