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Winner of the National Book Award

The publication of this extraordinary volume firmly established Flannery O'Connor's monumental contribution to American fiction. There are thirty-one stories here in all, including twelve that do not appear in the only two story collections O'Connor put together in her short lifetime--Everything That Rises Must Converge and A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

O'Connor published her first story, "The Geranium," in 1946, while she was working on her master's degree at the University of Iowa. Arranged chronologically, this collection shows that her last story, "Judgement Day"--sent to her publisher shortly before her death—is a brilliantly rewritten and transfigured version of "The Geranium." Taken together, these stories reveal a lively, penetrating talent that has given us some of the most powerful and disturbing fiction of the twentieth century. Also included is an introduction by O'Connor's longtime editor and friend, Robert Giroux.

Customer Reviews:

• DOWN AT THE INTERSECTION OF PICK-UP TRUCKS AND HOLY WATER
  Todd Sentell is a Georgia native and author of the social satire, Toonamint of Champions
  
  Dear Flannery,
  
  Forty-three years after you died too young, a Georgia historical marker was stuck in the ground across the highway from the end of Andalusia's driveway. On a boiling hot Friday morning in July, in the shadow of the Badcock & More furniture store sign, just before the dedication ceremony started, a suntanned fellow in a red pick-up truck drove past and honked his horn. For an instant, I thought Parker was back.
  
  The mayor of Milledgeville spoke about you in his Milledgeville accent. And then, a priest with an Irish name in a huge white robe from your old church, Sacred Heart, got up in front of everybody and moved his hands around and read some things from out of that book that's not exactly the Bible. He said some things that a few of your fellow Catholics repeated with him and then the priest flicked the historical marker, while it was still covered with an official Georgia historical marker blue cover, with holy water. He flicked his wood water wand six times. I counted. The first time he flicked it at the cover you could see the cover quiver but it never did again. If there was a moment you would have loved the most, other than that redneck in the pick up truck blasting the earnestness out of the hot air, it was that holy water business. I'm not Catholic, but these were some moments I deeply understood anyway, especially since we were across the street from where you made literary history because of those hard, perpendicular intersections you designed in your stories and two novels ... the perfectly timed crashing together of personalities and religion in all its strange forms ... and its haunting aftermath. We were having some near crashing together of religion and personalities right there ... right by a loud highway in a modern time as we quietly stood in the grass that belonged to your marker and a discount furniture store.
  
  After that priest blessed your marker, the fellow who's in charge of the Georgia Historical Society got up there and said he was pretty sure that was the first time in the history of Georgia historical marker dedication ceremonies that one's been flicked with holy water. Everybody laughed and nodded at each other. God ... did I think of you right then. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who got the literary and personal importance ... to you ... of that moment. I saw you smiling down at this one, too: after everyone stopped laughing I wanted to shout out, like Hazel Motes would at discovering a blasphemer ... that the feller who's in charge of the Georgia Historical Society is wearin' a tie covered with the logo ... of the state of South Caroliner!
  
  After the roadside ceremony, we were invited to come across Highway 441--very carefully--for a reception in the main house. Your house and yard were populated with people speaking in only Southern accents and they were talking about how they knew you and when. Or how and when they knew your mother. On your front porch an old woman grabbed my arm and asked me if I was in church Sunday ... that she saw me. I said I wasn't ... I live one hundred miles from here ... but if my evil twin was there then good for him. The lady, tottering on feeble pegs, told me her name but I didn't get it because she spoke in an accent so rich her words came out like syrup. She said she had moved onto the farm when she was fifteen and that you and her were opposites. She said she lived in that building over there. She pointed at it with a crooked finger ... at the old shed where Andalusia's caretakers keep an old donkey named Flossie. I wondered if she was drunk. Who cares. We were all drunk on you. Standing in your bedroom doorway gawking at your crutches, your bed, and your writing table. I'm sure you think that's repulsive--a bunch of people crowded at your door like that. But I'm a respectful hick. I gawk with misty eyes but I don't point.
  
  I'm not going to go on about the condition of the house and the buildings around the property. Just to say they'll be back in better shape soon. There's a man in charge and a foundation has even been developed and the man in charge works hard to preserve you ... your place. Still.
  
  Heading back home up Highway 441 in my truck, I passed a couple of Georgia roadside markers of another kind--those homemade crucifixes people stick into the ground near where a family member was killed in a car or truck or motorcycle accident. You never know. When you see one, and you see a lot of them in the South, all you know is that death happened right there and somebody wants you to by-God know it.
  
  But it's never at that intersection you write about. You always see those crosses on some long, straight stretch of highway or country road. I think of you as I travel my long stretch of road and across fields of living fire, sometimes in a straight line and sometimes real crooked ... as your voice strikes up in my mind ... your voice climbing upward, on key, into a starry field ... and those who love you so much come to that moment of your grace on that road sooner rather than later if we're paying attention and we thank you for it ... battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs and those who have always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right ... we honk our truck horns in your honor ... and shout hallelujah.
  
  Todd Sentell is a Georgia native and author of the social satire, Toonamint of Champions
  
  ...more info
• What was that about?
  Someone wrote, I read it in 12th grade and didn't `get it', but was blown away. I think that was her point. Catholic existentialism, as I see it. There is a similarity to Walker Percy, although she is in a different league. When I finish a short story, I laugh- what was that about? Yet at the same time, I think I know......more info
• Darkly funny and scarily true
  O'Connor's work is the South-- through a glass darkly. I remember in a literature class being read a letter where O'Connor wrote of some klansmen who spent the night in her hometown giving out baskets for the poor, dressed up in their white gowns riding in convertibles decorated with Christmas lights-- she then added "I don't make this stuff up."

  Having grown up in the south and actually seen folks walking down the highway with a big wooden cross on their backs, I am always amazed by the fact that though O'Connor paints a story that is funny, she isn't laughing AT anyone, rather, she is showing more how we all can be ridiculous, especially without self-awareness. Moments of grace, of dark awareness, of sudden self-knowledge (and sometimes that's not what we think it ought to be). O'Connor is a genius of Southern Gothic, and of American writing. These short stories should be devoured, then re-read over and over again....more info

• Lessons to be learned here--O'Connor was no fool
  I read this collection during college, in my senior literature seminar. I find O'Connor's stories to be the best, most brutally honest, thought-provoking and attitude-altering work out there. One piece deserving of mention are the classic "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the last line of which reasonates long after the reader closes the book. O'Connor craftily delivers messages about racism, elitism and other problems of the deep South in her stories, and beautifully maintains the Southern Gothic texture in each one. I can't recommend this book any more enthusiastically!...more info
• American Sophocles
  Thomas Merton said of O'Connor that when he thought of her, he did not think of her in terms of her peers in contemporary fiction (i.e., Hemingway, Faulkner, Steinbeck) but rather, he thought of Sophocles or Aeschylus.
  
  This compendium more than validates Merton's assessment -- after the American Empire passes, O'Connor's achievement will remain as its literary zenith. It's doubly strange, too, both for the form in which she specialized, and the content of the works. Americans (always poor judges of their own culture's worth) normally speak in terms of "The Great American Novel" --"The Naked and the Dead," "Ravelstein," "Moby Dick," "The Great Gatsby," even newcomers like "The Bonfire of the Vanities, ", "The Corrections" and "Infinite Jest" are mentioned as contenders for the title. And the content of most candidates for anything "great" or "American" must always involve wealth, splendor, orgiastic sex or consumption of some kind. O'Connor's characters, for all their supposed grotesquerie, are far less exaggerated or caricatured than any others in American fiction.
  
  Furthermore, unlike the other authors mentioned above -- particularly unlike Tom Wolfe -- she was never in search of the "thousand-footed beast," that all-consuming rig veda of a novel. And yet, in her own, simple, steady way, she outpaces the Mailers and Franzens and their febrile journalism. O'Connor is the consummate artist craftsman, who sees her art for what it truly is -- "reason in making" -- who finds reason in the created world, and informs her creations with a parallel, answering reason. Her mental eye is unwavering, like the beam of a lighthouse -- it is always pointed at truth.
  
  For that reason, O'Connor will probably never have the same popularity in this land of artifice and subterfuge that those others listed above will enjoy. History, nonetheless, will give her the laurels. ...more info
• It doesn't get better than this
  Flannery O'Connor is the best short story writer I have ever encountered. Some of her best stories include "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (which might be the best short story ever written), "Revelation," "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "The Enduring Chill," and "The Artificial Nigger." Some of the stories in this collection are not as good, of course, but they're all well worth reading. This is a book that everyone should have in their collection....more info
• storytelling at its very best
  I never get tired of reading O'Connor. Vivid, wry, tragic and shocking, these stories are keenly observed revelations of human foibles and spiritual failure. O'Connor, a devout Christian, was especially good at evoking simultaneous cruelty and comedy, e.g.,when the Misfit in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," looks at the dead body of the manipulative grandmother and says, "She would have been a good woman if there had been someone to shoot her every day of her life." In the hands of a lesser writer, O'Connor's sort of violence might have come across as heavy-handed and contrived, rather than thought-provoking. Too bad she had to leave us so soon!...more info
• Completely Unique
  This is my favorite book of short stories. I am amazed at how the author can blend such a diverse mixture of feelings into a story. Each story is humorous and heartbreaking. O'Connor has a knack for examining the thoughts in her characters' minds, and although they seem to be a little over the top, the characters are grounded in reality. I enjoy the fact that you can read this book for the pleasure of the crazy stories, or you may read it to delve into an examination of the religious themes uncovered. I would start with Flannery O'Connor by reading this book and then move on to reading Wise Blood or The Violent Bear It Away. It will be somewhat hard to understand those novels if you are not familiar with her short stories first. I think you will find this book fascinating....more info
• Roman-Catholic-Southern-Gothic
  I suppose Flannery O'Connor has her own genre, and the reader gets it aplenty in The Complete Short Stories of Flannery O'Connor (550 pages of it). Even if you do not share her version of Thomistic philosophy, or care too much for the unique American southern fixation with exaggerated characterization, there is much to enjoy here. Some stories, like the heavily anthologized A Good Man is Hard to Find, is heavy handed and obvious. It is the less known stories where the punch is packed, like Enoch and the Gorilla and The Displaced Person. O'Connor has an uncanny way of making the obvious and banal evil; she takes the Catholic fixation on the fall of humanity and its need of redemption seriously, and in this collection the state of this state is unusual, exotic, page turning. ...more info
• Flannery O'Connor
  Flannery O'connor's writing is a realistic nightmare of what could go wrong in trusting strangers. Her own vulnerability through her isolating illness gives her a projective voice of unexpected violence. Her writing is often shocking, with modernesque twists, brilliant imagery that puts the reader in the short story. Her love of plotting the grotesque, freakish Jeffrey Dahmer meets girl-next door, makes her work revolutionary for her time and unforgettable. ...more info
• Everything That Rises Must Converge
  A great many people are familiar with Flannery O'Connor, and she is universally regarded as one of the best American short story writers. Her novel Wise Blood was made into a cult classic film by John Huston. Reading her inspired Bruce Springsteen's best album, Nebraska. One could go on and on. I would add that she ought to be a hero of the civil rights movement (read any story to find out why). Instead she was unceremoniously kicked off the Catholic recommended reading list for the language used by some of her characters. But being forbidden might make her more attractive for some readers.
  
  The Complete Stories combines two previous collections, A Good Man is Hard to Find and the posthumously published Everything That Rises Must Converge. Nothing against the first set, but the stories in Everything are among my favorite. All her stories are about so-called fundamentalists in her home of Georgia or the deep south. The title of the volume is an ironic inversion of a phrase by Teilhard de Chardin (who meant it optimistically). There is only one story in which she plays her hand, and could thus be considered a Catholic story, "Parker's Back". As the recent book, Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South points out, she doesn't mean to mock her characters,but to immortalize them....more info
• An Amazing Collection!
  I was lucky enough during one semester in college to be forced to read several works by Flannery O'Connor. After hearing her stories, I fell in love with her, so I read this collection. This is probably the most amazing collection of short stories I have ever read. O'Connor presents Southern people at their best and worst. Adding a hint of religion, O'Connor conveys the idea of salvation and how life affects those who do and do not have this. My favorite stories include: "A Good Man Is Hard To Find," a shocking story about a criminal and an unusual family; "Revelation," a humorous work about people who view themselves as superior to others; "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," another hilarious and shocking piece describing how a woman decides to seduce a Christian man; and "Good Country People," a story describing how people fulfill their wants and desires at others cost. These stories are easy to read and fairly short! Highly recommended....more info
• One of Two Must Own Collection of Short Stories
  The other is Neil Gaiman's Fragile Things. I know this may seem odd to have O'Connor, the genius of revealing the inner workings of the human, beside Gaiman, but if you read Gaiman the connections are there. I'm all about getting readers from different disciplines and genres to connect with other fields. O'Connor's work, as most know, is as perceptive as it gets. Reading her work is a pure revelation, an ongoing epihpany as to what makes humans human (especially the southern religious human). Read, re-read and enjoy. ...more info
• Wonderful Writer
  I have never before spent all that much time with O'Conner's work. I was pretty damn impressed.
  
  
  
  Her observations on race were spot on--not dated in the least. Compared perhaps to certain writers who write of an experience that is only (most often) echoed today. There seems to be a certain timelessness to O'Conner's perception. Similar in ways to Twain, and perhaps to a lesser extent, Faulkner. I wonder if her Catholicism has anything to do with it, and the fact that she was a woman--these markers giving her an insight and subtlety of understanding that Protestant white men wouldn't necessarily have.
  
  
  
  It was interesting that both O'Conner and Richard Yates do not shy away from multiple points of view in a short story. Many if not most of the Yates stories shift POV. I have always inclined toward shifting POV, but was warned (scolded) away from it in my first writing workshops. I tend to like the way O'Conner handles shifts, it is more seamless than Yates. In O'Conner's work it is almost imperceptible (I am thinking particularly of "The Artificial Nigger" and the shifts between the grandfather and the boy). Yates tends to use paragraph breaks and will give entire sections of a story to a particular character's POV. O'Conner moves from perspective to perspective through brief paragraphs, shifting within the narrative line of the story without pause.
  
  
  
  And I have a soft spot for the gothic. I appreciate O'Conner's use of the physically maimed and the mentally disabled. I like her use of religion. Some of her stories read almost as twisted parables--sort of a Biblical Twilight Zone or Old Testament Alfred Hitchcock.
  
  
  
  But for my own work, I paid especially close attention to the intimacy O'Conner creates between her characters. I am thinking at the moment of "Good Country People." She does such a brilliant job of showing the tension, desire, misinterpretation and intimacy between Joy/Hulga and the Bible salesman. O'Conner holds Joy/Hulga's anger and ugliness and even her intellectual aggression in contrast to the unexpected vulnerability she shows the Bible salesman. It does indeed bring life and complexity to her character. And then of course when the Bible salesman reveals his motivation and his true desire, something really remarkable happens--it is as though in these moments I can see the story take a breath.
  
  
  
  "Good Country People" is such a good story--there are so many elements of craft, elements that I am working on in my own writing. O'Conner does a spectacular job not only with complexity of character, but also with complexity of circumstance. She creates a situation in which a seemingly immobile Joy/Hulga is poised on the precipice of change. The reader feels as though she really could--or might not--fall in love with the Bible salesman. There are moments of living possibility when anything (or nothing) can happen.
  
  
  
  There are many remarkable stories in this collection that demonstrate similar mastery of craft--The Barber, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Greenleaf, Everything That Rises Must Converge, A Good Man is Hard to Find...
  
  
  
  And along with these excellent stories, there are others that do not quite shine, stories that read as slice-of-life vignettes, interesting and pleasant enough to read, but not quite living: Wildcat, The Crop, Turkey, A View of the Wood, Revelation.
  
  
  
  I would like to read O'Conner's novels. And I am sure I will reread her short stories. And should I ever have the chance, I would love the opportunity to introduce her work to students....more info
• An American classic
  Unless one has had the privilege of reading Flannery O'Connor, then one might be considered illiterate when it comes to great American literature. She is one of the best, if not the best, writers of short stories ever, not only because of her mastery of language, mood, description, and character, but because her stories provoke the reader to think about life's deepest and most vital and complex issues in a fresh way.
  
  O'Connor ushers the reader into places the reader sometimes fears to tread, and often carries with her a sense of spiritual awareness that is both troubling and comforting. Yet, always lurking behind the weightiness of subject matter is her sly sense of humor, which can provoke laughter at the oddest and most unexpected moments.
  
  With O'Connor, you journey down red dirt roads under mossy oaks past tilting old homes rotting in their decaying glory...a landscape filled with colorful and oddball characters being navigated by seekers and dreamers and schemers and thinkers and fools and frightened lonely souls.
  
  It's all about the South and all about American gothic and all about post-depression blues. It's about a young nation coming out of adolescence and into adulthood. It's about bitter old folk still fighting the Civil War in their heads and hopeful young folk looking ahead to a sunnier future.
  
  Writing a review on O'Connor is intimidating. One reaches for the quiet majesty of language that she so easily mastered. I give up...just do yourself a favor and pick up this wonderful collection of her stories. ...more info
• Catholicism
  It is important to know that Flannery was a faithful Catholic and also a conservative. She was widely read and thought deeply about her faith. Some important influences include Weaver(Ideas have Consequences ) and Jacque Maritain. Her stories spring from her faith and from the reality of being a catholic living in a bible thumping red necked south. Read Habit of Being. She is truly one of the greatest Catholic writers this country has ever produced. Margaret Schmidt...more info
• Not what I expected...
  A group of seniors from our church were planning a visit to the author's childhood home. I thought it would be a great idea to purchase this book as a little prize for the trip.
  I read a couple of the short stories and found them to be a bit disturbing. Not at all what I expected. I do not need to have a "happy ever after" ending to stories but I read as an escape into anothter world. I did not enjoy visiting the world through Flannery O'Connor's eyes. Sorry. ...more info
• The Devil's In The Details
  "Grace changes us, and change is painful."
  
  O'Connor, a delicate Southern Catholic who lived a third of her life ravaged by lupus, was certainly acquainted with pain. Her stories reveal this much. Many readers and reviewers may wonder if she doesn't take a bit of artistic license with her definition of "grace," though. Considering her religious ideologies (which aren't hard to figure out, even after reading just one of these deliciously dark little tales), her unsubtle brutality isn't so unexpected. Look God directly in the face, the Bible says, and it completely and utterly destroys you.
  
  It's safe to say that even if her characters don't always get an unobstructed view of their Creator, they all at least catch a glimpse. O'Connor is not shy about her beliefs, and in fact, her unswerving social sensibilities are part of what make her writing so delectable. Read closely, because every single detail is important and potent. And just like the Bible she adheres to so fervently, the endings to her stories are forecasted unapologetically by every word that comes before them.
  
  This in no way ruins the power of those conclusions. Read a hundred interviews with a hundred writers, and I guarantee you that many of them will mention, as inspiration, "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." Sit down for twenty minutes with the hilarious and heart-breaking "River," and ask yourself if your foreknowledge didn't rob the final lines of their shuddering ferocity. Visit "A Displaced Person," meet "Enoch and the Gorilla," stay for awhile with "Greenleaf," and take a good long look at "A View of the Woods." You may find yourself wondering if there is any compassion and hope in O'Connor's world, but you'll never doubt that it is full of meaning, full of necessity, and full of heavenly fire.
  
  There's a legitimate beef some may have with this collection. "O'Connor has written an amazing story," one of my friends once said. "I just don't know why she chose to write it thirty-one times." It's fair to say that O'Connor doesn't stray much from her predictably gruesome formula. But while her themes never change much (purification through fire, self-knowledge gained via self-destruction, and the immolations brought on by racism and doubt), her telling of them is so fine and so stark, the details themselves are what really showcase her writing's true brilliance and beauty.
  
  This collection is arranged in chronological order, and it is part of the treat to see her ideas age as she does. Her final story, the aptly titled "Judgement Day" is a revision of her first story, "The Geranium." The differences between the two show most openly where O'Connor hides the hope and faith and love that many feel is missing from all the works between. O'Connor, like the God in which she believed, seems too ready to expose her characters to an amazing amount of pain and degredation. But if you look close enough, if you read every sentence carefully, you'll see that she makes necessary every sacrifice, every drop of blood, every harsh, scalding ray of sun. In an era now where authors tend to shock for shock's sake, O'Connor stands out as a timeless reminder that as senseless and vicious as life's stories may sometimes seem, there is still the chance that behind it all lies a deeper, knowable truth. That truth may come at some great costs, but, O'Connor seems to say, it is better to buy with your flesh something lasting and real, than to sell your soul for even a whole world of lies....more info
• Flannery O'Connor: A role model for women writers
  When I first picked up The Complete Stories I thought it would just be another book, but after I read the first page, I knew Flannery O'Connor was a magnificent writer. My favorite book was A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, but now it is the Complete Stories. It takes me back to the 1940's and I just couldn't put it down. I love writing fictional stories on my free time and Flannery O'Connor has inspired me, especially in her story "The Crop." I recomend this book to anyone who likes a book they can call extraordinary. ...more info
• 31 stories of violent grace, madmen, prejudice, and fierce redemption.
  Thirty-one stories and 550 pages rest within this collection. Each story has its own merit, but I would like to take a moment to describe the ones that have best remained powerfully glued to my mind.
  
  Revelation - This tale deals with a smug, pious church-goer (of which many of O'Connor's find similarity). The woman is happy she is not black or white-trash, and thinks herself a candidate for the front of heaven's lines. Of course, O'Connor has a tasty ending for her in the story's last pages.
  
  The Lame Shall Enter First - A story about loving when it's too late. The last words of this tale still haunt me.
  
  The River - A young boy wishes to find the kingdom of God but finds tragedy instead. I think O'Connor was attacking how some things are best not taught to children because they will not be able to comprehend them.
  
  The Peeler - A pre-teen searches for cleansing after his first experience with lust.
  
  Wildcat - an old black man's greatest fear ominously grows closer and closer to him with each new night.
  
  The Enduring Chill - the Holy Ghost, depicted as a purifying terror, descends madly upon a reluctant intellect as he waits for death.
  
  A View of the Woods - an old man is not above the things he hates as he turns on the one thing in the world he swears to protect: his ten year-old granddaughter.
  
  A Late Encounter With the Enemy - a Civil War veteran finds that his moment in the sun is actual nothing more than his first day among the devils.
  
  Good Country People - considered a classic by most, this tale deals with the ironies of a devious mind and those who fail to recognize it.
  
  The Comforts of Home - a female nymphomaniac is taken off the street by a kind-hearted old woman. The old woman's son, however, refuses to accept the new house guest and sets a plan in motion that will destroy everything he holds dear.
  
  
  O'Connor's stories are often filled with fringe-lunatics in the raw pursuit of grace as they battle pious church-mice, the racism of the day, and their own feeble place in the world. She exposes the harsh prejudice of those who claim an outward perfection, and often times the righteous and smug are given over to the very things they claim to be above. O'Connor takes on a literary trip that features corruptive minds, freakish hermaphrodites, hopeless nymphomaniacs lurching for any form of grace, and wild-eyed country folk who doubt both faith as well as admire it from afar.
  
  She spares us nothing and when it's all said and done, what we have witnessed are the rawest forms of grace being sprinkled on those who most would never imagine worthy, while those who seem to have it all together are thrust into their own personal hells. If you are interested in grace for the rugged, vexed, slob and slut, her tales are for you. Enter with an open mind and you will unearth something more intriguing than you can imagine. ...more info
• The Complete Stories
  Ordered 2-14-2007 and just rec'd. 3-19-2005. Have not had an opportunity to read this book due to the long delivery time.
  
  Book arrive in very good condition as described....more info
• Bloody Genius
  There's a famous saw (that some attribute to the English evangelist David Watson) to the effect that, "The Holy Spirit is a gentleman." One will not get that impression from Flannery O'Connor. Thomas Merton allegedly said she didn't belong in the same class as Faulkner and other great American writers, but that she was up there with Sophocles. I think he probably had it right. I am convinced that anyone who classifies her as merely Twentieth Century, or Southern, or American, or Catholic, or woman, does not fully appreciate her, though it no doubt helps to be (or try to understand) all of these as well as what Jesus might have thought when He heard, "all the people," say, "His blood shall be on us and on our children!"...more info
• Flannery O'Connor, one twisted sister
  This was my first introduction to O'Connor's work. Had I known how thoeoughly I would enjoy, I would have read her years ago. I grew up in the South and always thought I got a pretty good education. But I was never introduced to Flannery O'Connor's work. From the dark and stark nature of her unique characters, I suppose I can see why she might have been excluded. Her work shines a bright light on the flaws and foibles that make us human. She does not show the lovely views of gentle Southern living with mint julips on the veranda. She shows the frustrated rednecks and misfits of rural life. A truly excellent read....more info
• The Greatest American Short Story Writer
  Flannery O'Connor is, in my humble opinion, the greatest. This book is my favorite single work that encompasses the breadth of what short story writing is all about. "A Good Man is hard to Find" is both chilling and laugh out loud funny. Greenleaf is a great example of irony. "A View of the Woods" is a much overlooked story. Flannery O'Connor viewed a world that included religious zealots without any real faith, frustrated liberals who couldn't make the world malleable into their world view, so-called intellectuals, big-mouth simpletons, and violent outcasts. She had a great ear for southern dialogue. I know, being a southerner, this is the way it really is....more info
• Flannery O'Conner's "The Complete Stories"
  I afixed Joyce Carol Oates' acrid response to a NYTimes review of O'Conner's work in the front of the collection that I newly purchased. Oates upholds the idea that any artist worth his salt is indeed seen as being "peculiar." I'm pleased to own a collection of this "peculiar" author's best work....more info
• The Quintessential Southern Woman Writer
  This is the most comprehensive collection of Flannery O'Connor stories that you're going to find anywhere, and you just can't beat the price.
  
  Flannery O'Connor is a literary giant. If your interests include American literature, Southern literature, women's studies, or any combination thereof, this book is a must-have for your collection....more info
• Theology, Irony, Comedy and Tragedy, plus so much more
  Fans of O. Henry and other short story writers would do well to read the collected stories of Flannery O'Connor. Though the stories are as rural as O. Henry's are urban, the sense of irony and tragedy remains the same, as does the sense of comedy. O'Connor was, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a superbly gifted technical writer.

  However, what takes O'Connor beyond the works of O. Henry is the theology behind so many of her stories. Raised in the deep South with several religious influences throughout her years, O'Connor struggled relentlessly with questions of faith, mercy, grace, forgiveness, and justification, especially in connection to social and racial prejudice. Readers will be hammered time and time again with O'Connor's understanding of what it means to be a sinner and what it means to stand under grace, and it is not for the faint of heart.

  Among the many stories worth mentioning are "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", "The River", "The Artificial Nigger", and "Revelation." These four stories by themselves would be worth the price of this collection - the rest simply add to the value. Any collection of 20th century fiction is incomplete without something from O'Connor, whose life was tragically cut short just as her work began to be truly appreciated....more info

• Dark, very dark
  One does not read Flannery O' Connor for feel good endings. The characters feel incredibly real, in that their innate psychology is so easy to realte to. Whether it be the old man who lives vicariously through his granddaughter and tries to shape her to be just like him to the proud intellectual who gets outmaneuvered by a crooked Bible salesman, it's disturbing in the fact that you've felt some of the same feelings as some of the despicable people that populate her short stories.
  
  The prose is incredible, and vividly shows that South in a time of rampant racism as well as transition to a more technological age. If there was one complaint, it would probably be that almost all of her stories have a tragic ending, and becomes a little predictable after a while. I consider myself pretty jaded, but a lot of the time it was cynicism for cynicism's sake, even if the underlying message spoke something all too true....more info
• Why Stories Like This are Considered Literary
  Since I couldn't afford to go back to school to get my Masters, I thought it might be wise to obtain the required reading list and read myself through an alternate education. One on the list was Flannery O'Connor.

  After reading through this book, I had an epiphany as to why so many writers win the big prizes such as the Pulitzer for fiction--you take average or stupider than average people, throw a common sense question or decision (to be made) in the mix, and watch the characters make the wrong decision and come out at the end either wiser, still stupid, or scratching their heads not knowing what the hell hit them.

  In many of Flannery O'Connor's stories, this is essentially the plot. Many, if not all, of the characters are from the South, call African-American's the 'N' word without apology or hesitation, defines the era in which the story was written, and certainly perpetuates the myth folks from the South are illiterate, stupid, and don't have the common sense God gave a gnat.

  A critic praised her (quote) 'stories that burn bright, and strike deep.' Flannery O'Connor wrote stories where stupid people make stupid mistakes and I was pretty disappointed in the whole set of stories overall. While her story-telling abilities are a little higher than average, I don't agree that her plots or story lines are as valuable as the kudos give her from other literary critiques.

  If you are interesting in 'entertainment' type reading, this book is definitely not for you. If you are interested in The South as it used to be, from a native Southerner's point of view, and some interesting stories (overall) with deep literary and moral undertones that you have to re-read more than once to grasp, then this type of book will definitely appeal to your academic standards.

  While her stories may have been 'important' half a century ago by reflecting the sad, uneducated, and prejudiced thinking of the people of the South, I believe that the world has made broad strides in their thinking, education, and literacy and has moved beyond her stories and her way of thinking....more info

• Finding the truth
  Genius! These stories remind me how much we can learn from people very different from ourselves. A Southern American white woman, O'Conner offers invaluable gems on American culture, racism and classism. When I read newer stories by our best young writers (people like Sherman Alexie), I am reminded of her. She writes the truth. It is often funny, sad and ugly at the same time-but it is the truth, and it is beautiful to witness. She is a true master of the short story....more info