As a writer and an appreciator of fellow contemporary writers, Brainard Cheney read and provided commentary on the writings of many authors of his day. The first work of Flannery O’Connor’s that Cheney read was her initial novel, Wise Blood. Cheney’s review is insightful and thought-provoking; according to O’Connor, it is one of the only positive reviews that Wise Blood received. Cheney understood O’Connor’s biting wit and complex views on religion in the American South.