The Complete Stories, Flannery O'Connor

From "The Geranium": Old Dudley folded into the chair he was gradually molding to his own shape and looked out the window fifteen feet away into another window framed by blackened red brick. He was waiting for the geranium. The put it out every morning about ten and they took it in at five-thirty.

Flannery O'Connor is such an amazing writer. Her stories create such a feeling in you even though they're only between 10-40 pages long. I read Everything That Rises Must Converge, and I just had to read the rest of her stories. And really, they're so amazing. There's an element of the macabre to them. You get this deep chilling certainty as you read that something bad is going to happen in the end, which it usually does. And they're kind of scary that way, but it just shows how talented O'Connor was. America lost a great writer when she died in 1964 at the age of thirty-nine from lupus. You got to give the South credit; they've turned out some great writers. Now I've got to have this volume for my own collection.

I've got to give A Good Hard Look credit for motivating me to read O'Connor. I'd obviously heard of her before, but never actually read her. I guess I thought it would be boring or something. I couldn't have been more wrong. Her stories are gripping, and her words are beautiful. O'Connor is definitely now among My Top Ten (by the way, the order in the list is kind of arbitrary really. I switch the order around every few weeks or so according to my whims.) Really, I cannot stress how much I recommend her. Wonderful, wonderful writer, and wonderful, wonderful stories.

Read The Complete Stories:

• if you like Flannery O'Connor
• if you like short stories
• if you like Southern fiction
• if you are looking for a gripping collection of stories

550 pages.

 

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