The Complete Stories (FSG Classics)

A good low-cost collection of O'Connor's works, perfect bound and paper not too flimsy (could be heavier). Rather small format. Definitely worh the few dollars I paid for it online, saving the search at used book sales, etc.

I have read an incredible number of books in my lifetime and believe that Somerset Maugham and Borges created the most perfect short stories I have ever read but having just read Flannery O'Connor for the first time, I would ask that Maugham and Borges make room for her in their celestial glory. I found that every story grabbed me by the neck
and held me mesmerized until the sad ending. She is able, in a very few, perfectly crafted sentences to paint a character or a scene so that the reader has a vivid and exact picture. I will read everything she wrote in short order
because I just turned 80 and must hurry! What a treasure!

There's something almost magical about the power of Chekhov's prose (in Constance Garnett's translation) to pull the reader from one sentence to the next, start to finish, as if by a kind of horizontal gravity. At the end of these stories, the ball is still rolling, so to speak, for they were written to leave readers in a state of irresolution about them. The reader must therefore complete them, ponder what is unresolved in them, contemplate what Chekhov deliberately leaves open for discussion.

Reading Chekhov made me think of Kafka. I'm thinking Kafka must have read Chekhov closely, for his prose might be said to take Chekhov's magical power and elevate it to levels of perplexity and utter bewilderment. Life really no longer makes sense. But where Chekhov builds up this power gradually in his stories, Kafka confronts (overwhelms) his reader with it from the outset. I suspect Kafka got the idea for his "Trial" from Chapter 8 of "My Life". See for yourself; the debt is both in language and setting.

But where Kafka ultimately leaves readers suspended in mid-air, Chekhov grounds them firmly in his accounts (especially in "Peasants") of the ordinary details of the lives and loves of ordinary people, all set at a precise, turn-of-the-century moment in Russian history, as Edmund Wilson's invaluable introduction makes clear. Wilson's contrast of Chekhov, on one hand, and Dostoyevsky and Tolstoy, on the other, is illuminating.

She's a great writer, but if you've read Revelation, you've read the cream of the crop. Every story is similar, sad characters, sad settings, sad events, sad outcomes . . . I think we're reading the work of a very sad lady.

I've read only six of the stories, so far, in this volume. Two of the stories end with grotesque and disturbing violence, with no literary or other value or reason for the violence understood by this reader. The revulsion I felt about what happened to characters in those two stories blind me to any other qualities those stories possess. Other stories seem to be contemptuous about some, most or all of a story's characters. I understand little, if any, of the symbolism, religious and cultural, alluded to within the stories I've read. (Then, I'm not of the southern U.S., nor am I a Protestant or Catholic.)
I don't get the great writing and story-telling expressed by others. I can tell much effort went into constructing the stories, and that's the extent of the appeal of the stories for me.
If a writer writes to share her perspective about the cultural and religious soup in which she's immersed for others to understand then Ms O'Connor should have written her stories with more clarity, especially for those American readers not of the South, nor those knowledgeable of Protestant and Catholic beliefs, practices and myths. The majority of Americans are not of the South; and, I'll risk saying that the majority of the readers, potential and actual, will not understand Ms O'Connor symbolisms, but that is, I will concede, is debatable.

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.

I can't tell you how many times I have read reviews of books that referred to A Good Man is Hard to Find, so when I read that Flanner O'Connor's short stories are considered at the top of critics' lists of the best of American writing I began looking for a collection. So far I have not been disappointed in the collection but I haven't finished it.

I taughjt O' conor to my givted juuior and senior Ebgliksh students, and tney later told me they did very well in college in collegfe English about American lkiterature analysing OConnor. Onde of tehm even went to Harvard!
Cheryl Key

O'Connor's is not well known among the general public, but revered
by those who know her work. Tragically, she died at 39, who knows
what she might have done with another 20 or 30 years. This book
contains all of her work except for her one novel. At a great price,
too.

Earl Schmitter,
Concord CA

You probably won't like my review. I'm a Protestant, Yankee, raised in the Army overseas. The world O'Connor describes is as alien to me as another planet. I don't understand the people, and I'm bothered by the use of the "N-word". Among Catholics the author is revered, and I felt I should attempt to read her...but I just can't relate to the world she writes about. What am I missing here?

O'Connor is highly overrated. She wrote stories about stupid stories about stupid people doing stupid things, not evil, stupid, not ignorant characters, stupid. How did this writer acquire such a high reputation? Contrast her with Marilynne Robinson. Whew! What a difference.

Here I go again, writing a review of a classic and of course what can I say that a thousand PHD lit majors haven’t already written. I did come at this from a point of extreme ignorance, not that I grew up in a stifling intolerant environment type of ignorance, but more a who is Flannery O’Connor type of ignorance. I knew so little about this author that this was a real revelation the only thing I’ve read of hers’ so far is Her complete short stories,… Wow! Well the early ones “The Geranium” “The Barber” “Wildcat” and “The Crop” was like thinking WTF? I didn’t understand it, it took awhile for me to figure out the characters were all poor white’s (We west coast liberals wouldn’t say white trash at least not out-loud) at first I thought the characters were all poor black’s so use to visualizing in the mind’s eye automatically seeing someone saying “Ain’t no fish dere. Dis ol’ riber ain’t hidin’ none nowhere ‘round hyar, nawsuh.” So the first discovery for myself was hey I haven’t heard poor southern white’s speak in a realistic way in like forever, that without references I assume the person speaking was black and not white. Reading Flannery O’Connor is to look into the mirror of racism and to see yourself looking back. Lesson one. Next it’s the intonation, the cadence, the cultural markers which are all so different, it’s like her words flow like jazz music with a flow sometimes smooth sometimes very choppy but in a tempo and manner very unlike anything your normally use too, lesson two life as improvisational poetry. She stays on certain themes, religion dogma vs atheism, liberal or neo-liberal ignorance vs southern intolerance, racial divide, Death and dying, forgiving and remembering, lesson three simple themes can be all so complex. At one point I was on the train to New Mexico going to see my very elderly mother not knowing if this would be the last time I would see her, I started the trip reading “The Enduring Chill” and ended it reading “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” well that is a perfect bookend to an analysis of a complex and difficult mother child relationship. “You remain what you are,” she said “Your great-grandfather had a plantation and two hundred slaves.” “There are no more slaves,” he said irritably. “They were better off when they were,” she said. He groaned to see that she was off on that topic. She rolled onto it every few days like a train on an open track. He knew every stop, every junction, every swamp along the way, and knew the exact point at which her conclusion would roll majestically into the station. (Everything that Rises must Converge) Lesson four your mother can have flaws that blinds her spirit but she is still your mother.
I could go on there were lots of examples here that set my mind to work, personally it took me out of my comfort zone as a reader a number of times, for that reason I give it four stars but, I would probably give Shakespeare four stars as well for the same reason doesn’t mean it isn’t a classic and a great collection of work.

Close to six hundred pages of Flannery O'Connor stories, which might feel overwhelming in a print book but not on the Kindle, where it doesn't matter how long it is and everything is immediately accessible at the touch of a finger. This collection is a great example of why I've come to treasure my Kindle!

This Kindle version is also very well produced, with a superb introductory essay written in 1971 by Robert Giroux, the late editor and publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The introduction can actually be read here on the store by using the 'Look inside' feature, worth the time for someone considering purchasing the book.

One minor quibble - this volume does not, strictly speaking, include all of Flannery O'Connor's short stories, omitting the posthumously published (1988) An Afternoon in the Woods (which for some reason is not included in either of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux short story collections of her works, this otherwise complete collection, or the less comprehensive Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories).

In fact, the only thing more complete is probably the Library of America volume, which does contain An Afternoon in the Woods, along with all of her other short stories, both novels, and a selection of her essays and letters, altogether 1300 pages and no doubt a terrific volume for the bookshelf, but not available for the Kindle, as far as I know: Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America).

With respect to the writing itself, I am exploring it now but know that it will be superb. The lead review, by Mark Eremite, was particularly helpful, not that I required much convincing with respect to the value of her writing and this collection.

Flannery O'Connor's two novels are also available in similar Kindle editions:

Wise Blood

The Violent Bear It Away

In trying to expertly sum up the brilliance that is illustrated in The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor, I am speechless, because I feel incapable of adequately conveying to potential readers how remarkable each individual story truly is. Maybe, without going over-the-top with flattery and high flatulent gushing, this is the best down-to-earth and honest complement that I can bestow upon this genuinely remarkable literary treasure, a book of stories that most deservedly earned its 1972 National Book Award and which, has since its publication, become a true literary landmark among classics in contemporary American literature.

The majority of stories in this collection are, understandably, O. Henry Award winners and are indeed quite deserving of the accolade. The literary quality, for me, represented some of the best English prose put down on paper. The plot, theme and development of each singular story is powerfully and decisively conveyed, expressed assertively with a violent biblical and Catholic yet grace filled urgency. There is an amazing articulate religious zealotry in these stories, which are also mixed with an authentic Southern gothic component that is sometimes bizarre, to say the least. But it is mixed together in a good and edifying way. These stories are credible and digestible, minus the typical zealot's accusatory pointed finger expressing fire and brimstone judgements, a kind of do this in the name of God or else attitude of predetermination. Rather it involves choices, good and bad, and the consequences of those choices with the Divine thrown in, or, more correctly, the Divine expressed outwardly when the said character reluctantly gives his or her yes. Predetermination is involved, but each story goes deeper in layers, because right can alter wrong and change one's destiny for the better. The latter elements are the true hallmarks of why Flannery O'Connor's stunning fiction is so uniquely and identifiably, her own. You just know a Flannery O'Connor story when you read one.

I am, as I said before, admittedly hard pressed to pick and analyze just one story, because each one offers an electrifying jolt of intellect and depth whereby one would say, "That was a really great story." Then after the next one was read, a reader would be even more impressed, and it would go on in that vein until the whole collection was thoroughly read through. At least that is the way is was for me. Some of the stories are really disturbing like "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" or are deeply touching like "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" which includes a beautifully written paragraph that is typical of O'Connor's writing:

"Her mother let the conversation drop and the child's round face was lost in thought. She turned it toward the window and looked out over a stretch of pasture land that rose and fell with a gathering greenness until it touched the dark woods. The sun was a huge red ball like an elevated Host drenched in blood and when it sank out of sight, it left a line in the sky like a red clay road hanging over the trees." Page 248.

This is just a basic sample of the largeness of these glorious stories, and I do highly recommend them for readers. For people who are already O'Connor admirers they know what I'm talking about, as I do them. The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor was a fantastic read, and I am happy this collection is in my personal library. It is great for writers, novice writers or just for folks who genuinely appreciate the value of the written word. If O'Connor never wrote her novels (Wise Blood and The Violent Bear It Away) or her sundry lot of book reviews and criticism and letters (The Presence of Grace: and Other Book Reviews, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose and The Habit of Being: Letters of Flannery O'Connor) her literary reputation would most definitely be assured and cemented with these astonishing stories.

I read this book on and off for more than a month. It is well written and Ms. O'Conner is a talented writer. But is this book a classic? I say no. Some of the stories I felt were to short, others to long, and some made absolutely no sense. some ended without any real ending, leaving me dissatisfied and in some cases, frustrated. Her writing kind of reminds me of Stephen King's short stories with all the details but, without the creepyness. Her stories seem to border on horror? without ever actually getting there.
In fact her book is kind of creepy in other aspects.She has this strange fascination with relationships between small children and old people. The one I think of off hand is, the one were the grandfather takes his granddaughter off into the woods to spank her, and she ends up killing him. Maybe it is that the stories were written so long ago, but there is a strange, almost sexual vibe to some of these stories, that maybe no one in the 1950's would sense, but I found somewhat disturbing. Also, any one who is upset by the use of the 'N' word, beware. Ms. O'Conner uses it repeatedly in almost every single story in this book.
Maybe I am being to tough on this book, but I just don't feel it deserves 'classic' status. I was left disappointed to often.

I just finished this collection for the 2nd time and 3 of the stories for the 3rd time. One of my favorite books that I will read over and over. One has to keep in mind when these stories were written due to some of the language but the meaning behind each story jumps out at you at the end of each one. A rich experience and lesson is in each one of the stories in this collection! The treasure awaits you!

I have lingered over the stories in this book for well over a year, mostly because I was dreading the day I would run out of more O'Conner stories to read. Her stories are all jolting parables of grace, where "the lame shall enter first", to plagiarize a title from her. If there were ever stories written that pierce the inner pharisee in all of us and show forth the ugliness of self-righteousness, these are it. It is usually in tragedy that the hero of the story is broken and comes to grips with their own weakness and need for grace (though not all by far end that nicely). Visceral, at times disturbing stories that will resonate in unexpected ways to convict your pride and delight with the prospect of grace. GET THIS!

Some practical notes:
- Each story is only about 20 pages long, which makes for chunks that are easily readable in one short sitting.
- As most of her stories are set in the American south in the early 20th century, the "N-word" profusely used to reflect the attitudes of the populous at that time (though O'Connor clearly criticizes racism in the stories).
- There are various collections of O'Connor's stories out there. This one contains almost all the short stories she published, and is certainly the best deal for the price.

This book was tough reading for the most part--O'Connor's material can be disturbing and I often found myself feeling impatient with her repeated use of similar character types (widows who run dairies, dysfunctional thirtysomething-age daughters who are treated as children, angry artistic young men). However as I went through story after story (31 in all) I became more and more impressed with the structure of these pieces and how the development of the character and the plot are woven so seamlessly they appear to be one and the same.

The story "A View of the Woods" describes a country store called Tilman's whose owner has posted a series of signs along the highway alerting drivers to the store as an upcoming destination: "...Tilman's was only five miles away, only four, only three, only two, only one; 'Watch out for Tilman's, Around this bend!' and finally, 'Here it is Friends, TILMAN'S!' in dazzling red letters." O'Connor moves the reader through her stories in a similar fashion. The work has an energy that drives the stories. The characters are moved clearly, determinedly, to a destination that is often horrifying, but the reader isn't necessarily shocked by it. Why? Because in developing her characters O'Connor has planted signposts all along the way, much like the signs to Tilman's, that hint at how each character's flaws is leading to their destruction. In this way the stories also take on the feeling of a Greek tragedy: these characters have within them the seeds of their own doom and though they claim to resist what they don't want, their personalities draw them to their fates just the same. By making her characters' flaws the basis for action, O'Connor is able to create intriguing, engaging plot points born naturally of the people populating her stories.

Flannery O'Connor is, in my opinion, the best fiction writer of the 20th century, and her prose style has been a major influence on my own. The majority of the stories are religious in nature. Several are about race relations. She was Roman Catholic, but most of her stories are about the salvation of protestants, often far-out ones, usually without them embracing her own church. When asked why her stories were so depressing, she answered, "All my stories are about salvation. How can that be depressing?" When a lady wrote her that her stories did not lift up her heart after a hard day at work, she replied, "If your heart was in the right place, it would be lifted up." She was herself Southern, and nearly all of her stories take place in the South, whose culture she captured. She once said, "The South may not be Christ-centered, but it is certainly Christ-haunted." Her characters contain such people as one who gets a tattoo of God on his back, one who founds The Church of God without God, and a Bible salesman who cares nothing about the Bible.

I hadn't read any Flannery O'Connor before I picked up this book. Since I've finished it, I'm thinking about picking up her novel, Wise Blood, or maybe her biography, if there's a good one out there. I want to know what events in her life inspired such dark, weird stories. They read like fever dreams, full of odd-looking characters, moving slowly through the Georgia heat. Some find unexpected, divine revelations. Others commit acts so heinous you read the stories' end, over and over, because you...more I hadn't read any Flannery O'Connor before I picked up this book. Since I've finished it, I'm thinking about picking up her novel, Wise Blood, or maybe her biography, if there's a good one out there. I want to know what events in her life inspired such dark, weird stories. They read like fever dreams, full of odd-looking characters, moving slowly through the Georgia heat. Some find unexpected, divine revelations. Others commit acts so heinous you read the stories' end, over and over, because you can't believe how twisted it is.
I wouldn't read this book cover to cover -- I tried to do that at first, but then stopped because the themes started to get repetitive. Individual stories that stood out were A Good Man is Hard to Find, A Late Encounter with the Enemy, The Life You Save May Be Your Own, Good Country People, A View of the Woods and The Lame Shall Enter First. But all of the stories deserve a second and third read.

Flannery O'Connor's world is dark, bizarre and grotesque, yet comically ironic all rolled into one. I remember taking a Southern writers course in college and first learning of her short stories, and then recently going back up and picking them up again. I was hooked. Unusual characters and situations are at the forefront in her stories; however, there is more to her stories than just their shock value or entertainment. With such deeply symbolic links to spirituality and messages of faith, there really is more there than appears. They have a simplistic form, but are thought-provoking, unique, and often have endings that leave a lasting impression.

Similar to many writers of the past, O'Connor was misunderstood. Many take her stories to be "horror" in origin, but this would be a misinterpretation. Her stories have a Southern flavor to them, but they are of a cynical and darker mood, and seem to expose the negative side of humanity in various forms. She often takes the "road less travelled" and approaches a moral or theme in a backwards sort of way. So, it is not uncommon to encounter hypocrites, sinners, liars, cheats, and other degenerates. In other ways, her stories aren't always as linear as one would think, as they often need to be interpreted in a symbolic sense rather than at face value.

This is the most complete collection of her stories, and it spans from the beginnings of her writing career and follows it all the way to the last story before she died, "Judgment Day." Part of this collection is the basis for her first novel, Wise Blood. If you have read the novel, you will know many of the characters and chapters within these stories.

There are so many stories that I loved, but probably my favorite is "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." The story involves a drifter, Mr. Shiftlet, who comes upon a woman and her daughter. Mr. Shiftlet has sort of a salesman pitch about who he is and what the world is, but he has an ulterior motive--he wants the woman's car. The ironic point of the story is that the two main characters, while they speak about the rottenness of existence, are apparently blind to the fact that they are part of this badness. The ending--the scene with the hitchhiker and his message--is pure genius.

Other notable stories: "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a darkly comic story features a grandmother and her family meeting up with a notorious criminal running loose, the Misfit. "The Displaced Person" illustrates the negative sides to discriminating against outsiders. "Good Country People" demonstrates an ironic twist to the title, as a woman meets a man who is anything but "good country people." "A Late Encounter with The Enemy" has an old timer, who believes he fought in an epic war, encountering fate at his granddaughter's graduation.

If you are a fan of Southern writers or the Southern Gothic, this is a great place to start. A fantastic and comprehensive collection and, for the price, it is a steal.

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.

All of my reviews can be read at my blog (novareviews.blogspot.com).

I was ten years old when my uncle gave me a book of short stories by Guy de Maupassant. I remember reading through the book one summer and being totally awe-struck by the content of the stories, but it was only many years later that I came to appreciate the author's mastery of the genre. I have several favorites, many of which are found in the collection presented in this Franklin Library edition, such as "Boule de Suif" which is absolutely brilliant, "The Piece of String", and more.

Regarding this edition, I was fortunate to have found this leather-bound edition of The Franklin Library's limited edition series as part of The Collected Stories of the World's Greatest Writers. This edition was published in 1977, contains illustrations by Lily Harmon, and comes bound in beautiful, orange leather with gold-accented details on the covers. As for the contents, here is a listing of the stories:

Boule de Suif
In the Spring
The Graveyard Sisterhood
Madame Tellier's Establishment
A Ruse
An Old Man
Rust
Two Friends
The Jewels
The Conservatory
The Matter with Andre
My Uncle Jules
A Duel
The Convert
In the Bedroom
Regret
The Decoration
The Piece of String
The Model
The Hand
Idyll
Mother Savage
Guillemot Rock
Imprudence
The Signal
In the Woods
The Devil
The Horla
The Mask
Mouche

One can read O'Connor and think 'wow, that was so funny and depressing at the same time.' Or one can read it more carefully and discover profound truths about God, the universe, life in general, and be blown away at how simply she expresses the secrets of the universe that few writers do. With careful, meditative reading, you will discover why she is regarded as America's greatest short story writer.

One lecturer on O'Connor put it really well: her work emphasizes the "trajectory of death". All living creatures are on the path towards death while making a fool of themselves; but it has a redeeming effect. O'Connor described this as God's "grace" - dying is the path to changing the grotesque nature of man and put him on the path towards redemption. Therefore, her work can be seen as Christian allegory. But this is not why her work is brilliant. Her work is brilliant because she simply writes better than any short story writer I know. Her work confuses readers, defies categorization, and evokes emotions. It is depressing because it reveals dark truths about our world, but it is uplifting at the same time because it reveals the truth and makes the reader wiser if they can grasp it.

Another thing: her characters are comical, grotesque, exaggerated 'gargoyles' that may not be realistic. But they have more resemblance to real people than most other creations from other writers.

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.

This is one of my favorite short story collections. If I ever decide to sell any of my books this will be the one I keep. The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor is Southern Gothic at its finest. Each of these stories are grotesque and funny at the same time. Some are darker than others which keeps a good balance because those that are darker are truly disturbing (even while you are snickering at the circumstances). The characters are all quirky and bizarre and the violence is shocking. The freaks and criminals abound and many of these stories contain a great deal of horror in their outcomes. The stories that gave me chills were The Lame Shall Enter First, Circle in the Fire, Greenleaf, and A View of the Woods. Give yourself a treat as well as the creeps. Read this book and enjoy each of these creepy and unsettling stories and laugh and shudder at each and every one of them.

The thing that really impresses me about O'Connor how she evokes the slow, tired humidness of the south without ever really giving long descriptions of settings. It's all here, religious guilt, the burden of the past, the failures of reconstruction, a cast of singular degenerates, all of it wrapped up in a creeping sense of doom and futility. I lived in a small town in North Carolina for two years, and I was surprised at how well these stories evoke the general physical sensations of being in the the south, which I think is empirically different (at least from the mid-west). At times the themes can be a bit repetitive, but the characters are usually so compelling that it doesn't bother you

Flannery O'Connor -- with Carson McCullers, that other great (and greatly underrated) Southern writer -- is an author every literate person should read. Her characters, setting and dialogue are as vivid as Faulkner's, and her prose is more lucid. While I don't believe either will ever disappear from the Canon, both Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers are, in my opinion, too much neglected in American literature. There are few contemporary Southern writers who can hold a candle to either of them.

If you can't bring yourself to read THE COLLECTED WORKS, read at least THREE -- which you can find easily enough in paperback. This book contains just that: three of her most exquisitely-crafted novellas/short novels.

RRB
04/16/11
Brooklyn, NY, USA
Trompe-l'oeil (or, The In and Out. Of Love.)

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.

Amazing read, picked it up from my local library and was impressed by it. Truth is I have never heard of this author before, but found out that the short story "A good man is hard to find" was highly regarded by authors & critics, and rightfully so. My personal favorites are "Good country people" and "everything that rises must converge".

At the risk of violating the First Commandment, I bow down before the art of this woman, an art which has launched a veritable industry of English grad-student theme papers. O'Connor was a practicing Catholic in a stretch of the Bible Belt where there were few of her faith. No less a commentator than Thomas Merton compared her to Dostoyevsky. The comparison is just: both authors were unapologetic Christians who used shock, sensation, and violence to get their message across. O'Connor's stories are grotesquely Southern Gothic, but with a subtle, non-proselytizing theological bent. I first read "A Good Man is Hard to Find" in the 12th grade, and in spite of the fact that I didn't "get it," it blew me away. The way the humor segues into absolute horror is remarkable, especially when you consider this story was written in the 50s, well before mass murders and serial killers became fodder for the mass media. "Good Country People" is a satire of sex, religion, and nihilism in which an armchair anarchist is victimized by a good ol' boy pervert who is a manifestation of what anarchism really means. (The situation is similar to that between Ivan Karamazov and his half-brother Smerdyakov). "Everything That Rises Must Converge" features the conflict between a faded Southern belle right out of Tennessee Williams and her guilt-ridden, resentful adult son. "Parker's Back," a nice pun for a title, is about a fellow who adorns his back with the tattoo of a religious icon. "The Displaced Person," a tale of post-WWII refugees in rural Georgia, is the only story of O'Connor's in which some of the characters are Catholic, but as immigrants they are total outsiders in the world she depicts. These are all sophisticated stories that can be read over and over again. Many of them are violent, some irrationally so. Many of them depict vile and despicable characters. Many of them have a mad streak of black humor. Only one or two of them misfire and come across as preachy, didactic, or over-the-top satirical. O'Connor writes about the redemptive workings of grace in the lives of the most wretched of us - in other words, in the lives of all of us. Read this book from cover to cover; it will have the same effect on you as reading a profound novel.

A dear friend suggested a few Flan stories to me, and I guess I got hooked. With this volume consumed, I can now say I have read all of the published short stories of this fantastic writer.
O' Connor's work is fantastic in the way my dictionary describes the word. "Conceived by unrestrained fancy." These stories are nearly always shocking, actually very shocking. They are powerful character driven things, and rather than describe them as "horror" stories as I see some reviewers do, I would moreso call them "grotesques."
They involve characters that are not so much "horrible" or "horrorful" as much as they are simply ludicrous, or incongruously composed or disposed. Caught up in all manner of inner bigotries, hypocrisy, fanaticism of one sort or another (most often religious). O'Connor characters often turn out to be homicidal, suicidal, brutal, obsessed, the opposite of what they appear to be, and always, if nothing else... shocking!
I am no connoisseur of the short story genre but all I know is that these stories without fail, intrigued me. Opened a door to further contemplation, and went a bit beyond what they said.
For sheer brilliance of sentence structure, visualization, suspense, I think it would be fair to say that there are few writers that have ever written as clearly as Flannery O' Connor.
When I am reading literature, characters better dang well talk good, and talk like people, not like characters. The dialogue in this collection is one of its strongest points. Impeccable down-south vernacular.
As for verisimilitude, well that is another mentionable thing here. If they are anything, these stories are bizarre, and yet they retain that quality of appearing to be true. Appearing to be possible. But the last thing that they are (hear me now, if hearing nothing else), these are NOT happily-ever-after stories.
Hell no.
They are most often direct flights into the realm of the reprehensible and least optimistic aspects (propensities) of human nature.
For those who care, my own favorite story was probably The Lame Shall Enter First.
T.y.L.i.I.

There are 28 stories in this very excellent collection by Katherine Mansfield, the settings reflecting her own life experiences in New Zealand and England in the early part of the 20th century. Her detailed descriptions of objects are intrinsic to the stories, tiny sparkles that spread out and create a canvas on which her characters interact. Every story has its own suppressed passion as Ms. Mansfield gets right into the heart of what makes us all human. They are filled with arrivals and departures, spinsterhood and marriage, love and loss and pangs of despair. Children play a role in her writings, as do distinctions of social class. Life is a struggle for her characters who are timeless in their humanity, although they all live in a world that existed more than 80 years ago. With rare exceptions, the stories are sad. I was impressed by her writing, which is layered with subtleties in the way she deals with the major themes of life and death. Her structure is unique for its time, as there doesn't seem to be any center or an easily identified beginning, middle and end. Often, they are simply small slices of life, rare glimpses into human nature with sharp insights that sparked my own memories and feelings. It might have been uncomfortable, but reading these stories was a deeply enriching literary experience.

Flannery O'Connor is one of great American writers of the 20th century, a Southern Gothic stylist of the first order. She won the National Book Award for this posthumous 1972 collection, 'The Complete Stories'.

O'Connor sets her stories in the rural South and populates them with flawed, grotesque, and twisted characters - this is not the imagined noble, glorious, and chivalric South, but rather the real South of the poor and middling whites of the 1950's(race is mostly in the background). She catches the nuances of human behavior. Her stories have powerful, unexpected and disturbing endings.

Pick up a story and read just one paragraph and you will be hooked.

"Asbury's train stopped so that he would get off exactly where his mother was standing waiting to meet him. Her thin spectacled face below him was bright with a wide smile that disappeared as she caught sight of him bracing himself behind the conductor. The smile vanished so suddenly, the shocked look that replaced it was so complete, that he realized for the first time that he must look as ill as he was..."

Absolutely the highest recommendation.

I was so excited to read this when it shipped to my house today. The book cover itself is beautiful, and I'm a fan of the author's work. However, I received a damaged copy with a severe bend in the front cover on the top right side. This is the second time that the store has has shipped me a damaged book. Not happy.

Katherine died at the age of 32, a real pity because she was fouding a complete personal and masterly style of her own. Her stories are anecdotes of everyday life written with an incredible onomatopeyic style. You can easily find Chejov influence in her (one of her stories is just a translation of the russian master) but for the non russian speakers it is a treat to find this gift for subtelity in an australian writter.
I think this is a good selection of her work, but would rather recommend the penguin complete works. Anyway you can find in here some of her masterpieces:
Prelude and At the bay (I think one of them was first publish by leonard and Virginia Wollf in the Howgarths Press, VW reconigzing that she envied mansfield style): Onomatopeyic style for days of sun and sea
Je ne parlais pas français: More playful and cruel. Young
The fly: her masterpiece and probably the best short storie of all times. Complex, ironic, full of meanings.
If you are going to do a Mansfield tour start with
1.In a german pension: Her youth playful written critizising germans. Witty and inteligent
2- Bliss &stories: A littel to much sensibility but always great
3- The garden party & stories: She grows to inmense proportions
4-The dove nest& stories: Really ill. Strange stories presided by the fly
So good luck. I reaally envy you that will discover her. It is whole pleasure

You don't have to be Southern to enjoy these short stories , although it certainly helps to understand the peculiarities of the Southern way of thinking - which has sadly all but died out in today's homogenized society - so richly on display in this collection. And perhaps the very best thing about this book is that the stories indeed ARE so short. Perfect for those strapped for time or short on attention. Every time I pick this book up ( and I have read some of these shorts dozens of times each, especially the hilarious "Revelation" and the grotesquely fascinating "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" ) it's like going up into my Grandmother's attic and finding something new to discover. These stories are filled with laugh-out-loud moments, great one-liners and unforgetable characters. Certainly what would be called "Black Humour", but without being high-brow or pretentious. Essential American literature, and VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

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.

Unfortunately, I purchased many copies of various collections of O'Connor shorts before stumbling upon this complete collection. It is true that there is value in reading a collection of stories in their original compilation format-writers often tell larger stories through a series of short stories. But once you read a O'Connor story, you'll want to read them all, so I advise purchasing this complete set.

O'Connor stories are full of the most original and interesting characters and plots you'll experience in fiction. No recycled garbage here. A grandpa and six year old grandaughter fighting over identity, a son fighting with his mother over her charity to a stranger, father and son going to town. O'Connor was heavily influenced by her faith and her writing often explores themes of gaining and loosing religion. But the best O'Connor stories involve complex family relationships like "The View of the Woods". O'Connor was insightful and understood the tension created by the "can't live with 'em, can't live without 'em" mentality that often exists in family groups. Excellent reading.

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.

I read exactly two stories out of this book, the first Geranium and secondly A Good Man is Hard to Find. While Flannery obviously had an amazing skill for writing, I found both these stories so depressing. Thumbing through the book I could tell all her stories were going to be depressing. I don't shy away from horror or the macabre but I can only read so many gritty depressing stories in a year. If it's your thing and you're fascinated by southern dialect (this did nothing for me as I'm in the south so it's not intriguing, it only serves to remind me of some of my backwoods relatives) then you'll enjoy the read. A fine writer but not inspiring in the least.

I enjoyed every one of the stories in this volume -- and together, they create a nearly perfect whole -- but my favorite had to be "A Late Encounter with the Enemy." The story, to my mind, captured everything I think about when I ponder the "Old" and "New" South. O'Connor writes the story at a dizzying pace and yet gets to the heart of real emotion. All of the works in this book are excellent and will keep a reader engaged throughout.

"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.

Alice Walker said it best in her brief essay "South without Myths," O'Connor's characters have "nothing of the scent of magnolia about them (the tree wasn't probably even planted)." When I began to read her stories, I was terrified because I found yet ANOTHER relative in each one! (I found myself in the son in "Everything that rises must converge.") No one--NOT EVEN FAULKNER (God help me!)--hits me where I live so consistently! For ANYONE who seeks a narrative starting point from which to attempt to understand that weird mess called "the South" can do no better than to read O'Connor.

This collection of short stories is a remarkably good introduction to Katherine Mansfield. All of her most well-known and representative stories are included here, along with some that are lesser-known.
The beauty of Mansfield's writing lies in her poetic description of detail--her power of suggestion--and her courage. She was determined, both in her life and in her writing, to move against the current of the time. Her life was filled with problems; her health, her love life, and her writing all caused her measureless pain, but in spite of these she lived her life the way she chose to live it. And though her writings were often critized--not least by her notable rival, Virginia Woolf--she kept on in the face of difficulty, and is now recognized as a major transformer of the short story.
A few examples from this collection would be in order. In "At the Bay," Mansfield examines in great detail the experiences and emotions of each member of a large family in New Zealand. It is in this story that she displays perhaps to the fullest extent her ability to take seemingly unimportant details--gestures, looks, scattered thoughts--and from them build a fascinating portrayal of an individual's personality.
In "Psychology," she conducts a unique experiment. At first glance, not much happens in the story; but on further examination and multiple rereadings, the depth of conflict becomes evident, and then, Mansfield's understanding of the deepest nooks and crannies not only of the female but also of the male character.
"The Singing Lesson" progresses in a lighter vein; a spinster singing teacher receives a message from her fiance, breaking off their engagement; she begins her teaching miserable, heart-broken, and full of anger. Thirty minutes later, she receives another message in which he reassures her of his love. The story contains interesting use of imagery and simile, and pokes mild fun at the tragic mood swings of the young woman.
Mansfield's stories are not melodrama, but lyrics. They are short, poignant silhouttes drawn in quick and sometimes uneven brushstrokes, but always carrying the touch of genius.

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.

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.

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.

Katherine Mansfield is one of many very talented writers who were eclipsed by others more famous (such as Woolf) or who were forgotten (because of her early death.) I decided to read these excellent stories after a critic compared her to Flannery O'Connor. Knowing O'Connor's works very well, I thought it an odd comparison at the time, because they wrote in different periods, countries and styles. But after having read these stories, I think I understand this astute insight into their unique talents: both writers mastered the art of the short story through mystery and manners and spoke to universal truths.

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!

There are innumerable, many incoherent collections of Chekhov's short fiction: such is the bane of an author being in the public domain. What makes this collection superior is that Edmund Wilson, the greatest critic of the 20th Century, assembled it, and there is at last a logic applied to its assemblage beyond the crude dictates of chronology.
Wilson realized that Chekhov seems spotty if not incomprehensible when his short caricatures and romances are interleaved with brooding tales of peasant lives. Think of a Twain compilation where "The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" and "Punch Brothers Punch" are sandwiched together.
So Wilson's collection takes the best of Chekhov's "social" tales of his last decade, stories that focus on groups of Russians, whether it be the bourgeois, the peasants, the workers, or the decaying aristocracy. In these stories, Chekhov is on Tolstoyean grounds, and holds his own remarkably.
However, this strategy means sacrifice: the beautiful, sparkling "Lady with the Dog" would not sit well in this grim company, so it is excluded.

O'Connor captures something essential about Southern spirituality, something which cannot be summarized, something with roots in antebellum, but which flourishes still today long after she wrote. She once wrote that the South may not be Christ-centered, but it is certainly Christ-haunted. If you wish to comprehend the Christ-haunted South, there is no better place to begin than these stories.

This collection of short stories from Flannery O'Connor is full of unique characters: staunch old women, depressed aging men, disillusioned "artists," and young people already mired in moral ineptitude. There are no heroes or heroines here, these people seem just barely able to navigate their own life, and unable to handle any sort of major change. One underlying theme is the old South's reaction to a new social order in which former slaves and "white trash" threaten established tradition. Another theme is the manipulation of or misunderstanding of Christ's work of redemption. Instead of knowing the truth and the truth setting them free, these characters take part of the truth, skew it, then let it reak havoc in their lives.

Besides being engaging reading, these stories caused me to consider my own prejudices and moral ugliness. The chronological arrangement of the stories added to the book's overall enjoyment. It was great to see her progression as an author from the characters sketched in the stories she completed for her master's degree, to the fully fleshed out humans found in the stories she wrote in the years before her death. The first and last stories, in particular, highlight this maturation. The stories are the same, essentially. They both describe the demise of an old man made to spend his dying days with his daughter in New York instead of on his own in his beloved south. The characters in the last story are instantly recognizable as the characters from the first, but it's as though we've moved from seeing pictures of these people to meeting them in person. It makes for interesting reading.

Flannery O'Connor is unique in her style and perspective as a Christian grotesque writer portraying an almost comical view of the innocent and the damned who prey on them. What makes her so good is that there is realism behind the portrayals -- real insight and realistic character portrayals. She puts flesh and bones on her theology.

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 ... your devoted readers, wrapped in barbed wire ... 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

Flannery O'Connor's The Complete Stories puts the reader in possession of a superb collection of all her short stories, including those published posthumously. Each story looks at humanity in grit and detail. With a passion for the absurd, O'Connor explores the condition of the South, sparing no character's flaw and yet making the reader sympathize and care for the people she creates. Like Faulkner, O'Connor seems to feel a sadness and passion for the South and its often crazy citizens. While many read "Good Country People" or "The Life You Save May Be Your Own" in high school, there are other stories less well-known that reward attention. "The River" and "Revelation" are two personal favorites. In "The River" looks at child neglect, baptism and death simultaneously. "Revelation," which was her last finished published work before she died ends on a hopeful note-the protagonist actually seems to have learned and changed at the end of the story- a rare thing in her work.
O'Connor has been a particularly influential writer among American authors, and her theories about short stories are regularly taught in the classroom. She was a great advocate for allowing the story to be the meaning, and not candy-coating for a moral. However, her concerns are woven into the fabric of each story, and the flaws in ourselves are revealed through her characters. While O'Connor is known the best for her short stories, she also wrote two novels and some literary criticism, which are not included in this volume, but are also well worth reading.

Many white writers have tried (and continue) to capture the black experience, the oppression of the blacks in the South, but none come close to Flannery O'Connor. I did not have any idea about Flannery O'Connor's race when I started reading her some years ago and after a few books, I still did not know. Her writing is not subjected to any race or country of origin. It is on such a subconscious human level - just change the names and physical descriptions of the characters and you have a story that will take you inside the minds and bodies of the oppressed and the elite from every/any culture and before you know it, you will see yourself in a different light. Shakti Gawain and Deepak Chopra try to teach lessons that Flannery O'Connor presents to us - take from her books what you can, read them again and take more. Maupassant's short stories were unsurpassable, atleast I never thought anyone could come close to making strong statements in such few words, but I had yet to introduce myself to Flannery O'Connor. If you haven't read 'Everything that rises must converge' and 'A good man is hard to find' you are missing out on self growth and the tie that binds you to other humans.

Miss O'Connor had the distinction of being (like Scarlett O'Hara) an Irish Catholic from Georgia. In her short life (she passed away from a rare cancer in her thirties) Flannery O'Connor produced an amazingly full output of novels, short stories and poetry. This collection of her major short prose is southern Gothic at its finest. From Pentecostal preachers half-drowning converts while baptizing them in the river, to old ladies paranoid about meeting murderous bank robbers on the road during a cross country vacation-and then actually meeting some-these stories are unforgettable and brilliant, and can't help but make anyone wish Flannery O'Connor were still alive, a youthful and imaginative seventy-something, today.

I got into Flannery O'Connor when I was at the moody Goth (without the black wardrobe) age of 13. We had her for a reading assignment in school: A Good Man is Hard to Find unnerved me. I could relate to all of the Southern hypocrisy due to the heavy southern count in my family and all my time spent in "The Belt". The queen of the "Banality of Evil", Ms. O'Connor anoints characters that are at peace with their darkness to prey particularly on those whom are comfortable living a lie.

Ms. O'Connor exposes those whom want to hide behind their title, money, beliefs, etc. like someone shining a flashlight on a rat hiding in a sewer corner, and exterminating it. Her works came to mean to me the grotesque creature that the masquerade turns a person into, the creature that then must ultimately expose its true self in some unsettling way. San Francisco (aka `psycho') in the 80's and `90's and probably now, definitely brings Flannery O'Connor to mind. A beautiful and vertical natural landscape of sea, animals, sheer cliffs. The Euphoria of hot surfer boys in wet suits, with their sunshine smiles surf boards and an extended thumb asking for a ride down the coast to Santa Cruz (reminding of The Doors' Riders on the Storm, except they're better bait as `killers on the road'; almost making you stomp on the brakes of the beat up '71 Beetle that you borrowed from your friend. Instead, you just return the smile as you putter past. But the peace, love and hippie, innovative hardcore music, political anarchy persona that the world heard about was ultimately just another freak show, fueled by drugs and people publically debasing themselves in retaliation against the lack of acceptance they suffered in their place of origin.

I think of Flannery O'Connor whenever I meet someone and they put their facade between themselves and someone else; and when someone debases themselves by putting someone else's facade of celebrity, title, money, or whatever above their own self-worth. I know the ugly truth will eventually manifest itself, and it'll become a freak show spectacle for all to see (You Tube, reality TV, plastic surgery, etc.)

The antidote to becoming an O'Connor casualty is to just accept and be your honest self, with all the human blemishes that make you beautiful. Putting make-up on a pimple only makes it fester until it ruptures into an ugly mess.

I think Flannery O'Connor took things too far in her characters actions; and her works, in general: but that's what makes her Flannery O' Connor. But most of the bad deeds done by characters in her book were in private. I think that we are in an overt age of Flannery O' Connor now, destructive public acts in politics, in art, in media, in the world; and things are going way too far.

Flannery O'Connor is a master of prose. Whether it be her lauded short stories or her novels, her prose strike a blow like a fist. The plots are violent and engaging, the characters often grotesque---all of which make her writing frightening and uncomfortable, but none the less literary. As we know, she died at the height of her powers, but her reputation and prose live on and have engrained her in the literary world as a giant.

Of the 31 stories included in this short story compilation, only seven have not been included in her other three books, including five stories that were revised and included in her novels. It is easy to see why the five of the seven stories in this anthology were not included in previous books; they are indeed lesser works. But, it is worth picking up this book for one of the two previously unpublished stories: "The Partridge Festival." A note to those who may be squeamish about this topic: There is considerably more racist material in this book than in her other works.

You can read Flannery over and over again and always come away with something new and never, ever get bored. Much like listening to Beethoven, Mozart, or the Beatles, O'Connor never, ever gets old or wearing. My god, what a gift she had. Other reviewers have summarized the stories, so I won't. Suffice it to say, this collection should be on all people's bookshelves that love literature.

While O'Connor definitely has a specific way of telling a story, her tales have been largely ignored. This may be due to the subject matter that fills her niche relative to the time period she was writing in. Even if you don't choose to read the entirety of her work, you should do yourself a favor and take the time to get to know this author. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" and "Revelations" are perhaps some of the best literature I have read in quite some time.

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.

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.

Flannery O'Connor is truly one of the greatest American writers and this novel is evidence piece #1. Stand out stories include "Revelation" and "Good Country People." These are two of my favorite short stories of all time. O'Connor is a brilliant satirical author and I highly recommend her to anyone who is a fan of Southern Gothic literature. If you like Eudora Welty or Carson McCullers, don't miss out on O'Connor.

This does contain every last one of O'Connor's short stories. The book itself is very nice for a paperback, too: smooth cover, sturdy binding, and clean-cut text. Other editions of these short stories are often printed with too much front material (prefaces, forewords, timelines), but this one lets the stories speak for themselves with only one 12-page introduction. This book is great for one's permanent collection.

Flannery O'Conner is an absolutely wild and bizarre and scarry story teller. I never heard of her, until a friend gave me a copy of the book to read, and I was captivated.
She has some really scary stuff in there, and she's got a great sense of social structure and society.
Her timing of the book is incredible, and she knows how to build great suspence in her stories.
Some might be offended the way how she descibes blacks in her book, but she gives a very realistic charming picture of Southern lives.
A must read book. You will love it.

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.

I purchased this book for an advanced English course this semester. I had never heard of Flannery O'Connor. Now that I've read a few of her stories, I can't wait to sit down and read the rest of them--they're hilarious! O'Connor had a gift for creating vivid, idiosyncratic characters. Her stories are set in the South (of the USA) and have a religious theme; she shows how the characters get "mugged by grace" (those are her words). If you've never heard of Flannery O'Connor, or if you already love her, you are in for an enjoyable read.

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!

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.

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.

I studied Flannery O'Connor in college and wrote a thesis on her works. Her stories were mesmerizing and riveting, and I have re-read them many times since. She was firmly rooted in the Southern grotesque, but she was able to transcend the stark terrain of the South and present remarkable studies of human foibles and the self searching for meaning and redemption.

O'Connor had the uncanny gift to describe people, surroundings and life with astonishingly spare prose. Her genius was that she could reveal the mystery and manners in us all. Of particular note are "Revelation" and "A Good Man is Hard to Find." You must read this collection, and I promise that her stories will speak to you for years to come.

Reading Flannery is like reading the Bible, a horror story and a literary masterpiece all at once. She might not have liked the word masterpiece bc the word sounds academic or pretentious, but there is no one like her.

True indeed that Flannery Oconnor was an excellent writer - first rate. She was also proof that the best writing can work to depress the human soul rather than uplift it! Every story in this book was dark and sad - utterly miserable. What a sad and lonely life this writer must have lived. Totally depressing literature, yet very well written. This book could take a person on the edge of despondence and push him/her right over the irretrievable edge for good! After reading this book I really need some sunshine and happy voices. No more Flannery for me.

Usually don't write reviews on books or music, especially negative ones; but for me, the stories in this book were horribly offensive. How or why a person can think up such disgusting things to write about is beyond me. Every character in these stories were made to be sub-human.

I haven't read this entire collection of O'Connor's short stories, but I did complete "A Good Man is Hard to Find" (among others). This is one of the best stories that I've had the good fortune to read, and I look forward to pursuing Ms. O'Connor's works in full. Wonderful writing style and deep personal insight.

Flannery was a writer of great purity - a purity that imbued her stories with elements of pure revulsion. Like Conrad, she peered overlong into the heart of darkness. Obviously, a depraved mind, twisted into a Gordian Knot of irreparable convolutions, most likely by trying to hew too obdurately to her Catholicism in a region of Baptists, Assembliests, and various other Holy Rollers. Let her stories serve as a warning to the curious.

The word "depressing" gets shoveled around like a lazy load of manure whenever something is remotely serious or solemn. This is simply the incorrect use of the word.

This word should never be associated with artists like Flannery O'Connor, or anyone doing serious and solemn works of art.

The word "depressing" should be reserved for lazy loads of manure - exclusively.

Flannery O'Connor is an amazing writer. Please, buy her work and read it. But do NOT buy this book.

Whoever compiled this has a love for Flannery that I can appreciate, but the book itself is horrible. It's full of typographical errors; it doesn't get the name of one her novels right half the time (it's Wise Blood, not "The Wise Blood"); it seems self-published, judging by the back cover blurb and the fact it's published through CreateSpace. I'm not sure it's even legal. I would be shocked to find out it is.

I never bother writing negative reviews, but I found this book highly distressful.

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.

Flannery O'Connor is a fantastic writer but her short stories can be hard to understand if you don't know certain details about her life and philosphy. To this end, the introduction presents a biography that helps us to understand this intense woman, yet gives us no clues to help us decipher her complexe artistic sense. We are left to discover her as we can.

She may or may not have been racist. But when I buy a book and upon reading halfway through the first story decide to google search whether the author was racist or not, that's a clear sign that the book is definitely, 100 per cent not for me. I wish I could sell it, it's nothing but a grim paperweight at this point.

I admit I didn't do my homework on Flannery O'Connor. Just wanted some short stories that I could sit down with and lay down in a short period of times. I quit after the first two. I just found this distasteful and although it is written in a different time, I think it is very racial.

I got through two of the short stories but could not stomach another and deleted from my Kindle! I realize these were written many years ago but the racial slurs and language were sickening. I pray we never go back to those times.

I returned this book. O'Connor certainly possessed superior writing skills. What a pity she used them to share such dark and depressing characters. I found the unrelenting negativity far more offensive than her characters' use of the "n" word.

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.

Flannery O'Connor's stories are mesmerizing. I'd read (and marveled over) plenty of her stories in anthologies over the years but never bought an entire collection until recently. This super compendium was absolutely worth it. One reviewer mentioned that it could be repetitive but come on, you can't expect total uniqueness over an entire writing career. Of course certain things reoccur and themes show up again! A great book.

Close to six hundred pages of Flannery O'Connor stories, which might feel overwhelming in a print book but not on the Kindle, where it doesn't matter how long it is and everything is immediately accessible at the touch of a finger. This collection is a great example of why I've come to treasure my Kindle!

This Kindle version is also very well produced, with a superb introductory essay written in 1971 by Robert Giroux, the late editor and publisher (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The introduction can actually be read here on the store by using the 'Look inside' feature, worth the time for someone considering purchasing the book.

One minor quibble - this volume does not, strictly speaking, include all of Flannery O'Connor's short stories, omitting the posthumously published (1988) An Afternoon in the Woods (which for some reason is not included in either of the Farrar, Straus and Giroux short story collections of her works, this otherwise complete collection, or the less comprehensive Everything That Rises Must Converge: Stories).

In fact, the only thing more complete is probably the Library of America volume, which does contain An Afternoon in the Woods, along with all of her other short stories, both novels, and a selection of her essays and letters, altogether 1300 pages and no doubt a terrific volume for the bookshelf, but not available for the Kindle, as far as I know: Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America).

With respect to the writing itself, I am exploring it now but know that it will be superb. The lead review, by Mark Eremite, was particularly helpful, not that I required much convincing with respect to the value of her writing and this collection.

Flannery O'Connor's two novels are also available in similar Kindle editions:

Wise Blood

The Violent Bear It Away

A lot of reading and I'm not even a quarter of the way through. I had bought A Good Man is Hard to Find and I liked all the stories. The Complete Stories is a much larger book . I expect many more enjoyable stories.