Everything That Rises Must Converge, Flannery O'Connor

From "Everything That Rises Must Converge": His doctor had told Julian's mother that she must lose twenty pounds on account of her blood pressure, so on Wednesday nights Julian had to take her downtown on the bus for a reducing class at the Y. 

After reading A Good Hard Look, I was motivated to try some Flannery O'Connor myself. And I loved it. Her writing is so amazing; not beautiful, but gripping. Everything That Rises Must Converge is a collection of short stories, each of which is about twenty or thirty pages. I never wanted them to end. They revealed a dark side of human nature in a very chilling way. Her characters are all very well portrayed; based, I'm sure, on real people that she knew. Flannery O'Connor is really a wonderful writer. It's a pity that she died at age 39. This is the collection of short stories that she was working on at the time of her death.

Her stories are really dark and kind of grotesque at times; I also noticed a lot of foreshadowing of what was to come. That made them even more chilling because you had a premonition of disaster, but all the characters were blithely going about their business with no suspicions. I wouldn't say Everything That Rises Must Converge makes it onto my Top Ten List, but it's pretty close.

Read Everything That Rises Must Converge:

• if you like Flannery O'Connor
• if you like short stories
• if you liked A Good Hard Look

269 pages.

 

Outstanding Book That Will Stay On My Bookshelf For Rereading (jf I own it)!