Not yet, Jonathan, not yet

Shortly before his death in 1941, his widow and their only child settled in Milledgeville, a small town in Georgia. . .

Actually, of course, "shortly before his death" he didn't have a widow -- not yet, anyway. This is the sort of thing that George Bush used to say. And get (rightly) mocked for. It's disheartening to see the Post's top book critic saying it. Disheartening too, but not surprising, that he doesn't take the opportunity that the book under review gives him to tell us something about what makes Flannery O'Connor (". . . their only child . . . ") so special.