A Good Man is Hard to Find

I purchased this author/book because while reading one of my favorite author's, he mentioned Flannery O'Connor w/ admiration. Some of the best short stories he'd ever read. I had to pick it up.
She is a fine writer, but, not my cup of tea. Subject matter and settings are interesting but fairly depressing, at least for me.

I only read this book because it was part of a book club assignment. I have read O'Connor before and consider her a good writer, but all her stories are so grotesque that at this stage in my life I would prefer to read material that it is a little closer to normal and somewhat more uplifting.

This book is terribly dark and depressing. I purchased it based on Librarians recommend the books you should read in each decade of your life. I am terribly disappointed and will not complete this collection of short, grim, depressing stories full of unlikable characters. this books is nothing like what I expected

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" was recommended by a friend who is a college professor and an evangelical.
She considers it one of the best group of short stories every written. I found it amusing and highly entertaining
but I also found it troubling and would not recommend it to anyone.
I have a very sick black friend to whom I give books. Flannery's book would break her heart. The over usage of the
"N" word and the depiction of blacks as sub-human is a thread that runs through all her short stories.
I guess I am at a stage in life that I look at the church as His Bride and detest any form of bashing.
Catholicism takes numerous hits by it's Catholic author.
Frankly, while provocative it is not in the least edifying.
Man, I know I sound like a prude but the book really troubles me. 2 stars because it is provocative.

Because it has been widely anthologized, Flannery O'Connor's title story in this anthology, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," is probably her best known. It concerns a manipulative grandmother who tries to shepherd her son and his children on a motor trip to Tennessee from Georgia, when the family really wishes to go to Florida. As often happens in O'Connor's stories, irony upon irony abounds and both the innocent and knowledgeable wind up in mortal sin.

Actually my favorite story in this bunch is "Good County People," about a bible salesman who is not as good as people think he is, a pious farm wife, and her disbelieving daughter. To tell more would be to introduce spoilers. While O'Connor's craft is undeniable, the way evil permeates her stories is disconcerting to me, especially since the humor in these stories seems more likely to seduce the reader into accepting her visions of evil, rather than find comic relief.

these stories prove her literary genius as a young author. she was one of those born to tell, born to write. one feels the catholic (dogma) she was raised by, carved in her words, in the rough-unforgiving physical (and spiritual) features of her characters; for whom- in just a few pages, she manages to create depth and realness. her "tales" are truly southern, gothic and grotesque. very real, yet feeling surreal. they are dark but one feels the need to go back, reread, savor the sourness again and again.
the same goes for her other story book "everything that rises must converge". that compilatipon is my favorite. however, everyone should experience her marvellous works for and by themselves. please do read.
i am out of words, so i will copy this review and paste it under that book as well.

“A Good Man is Hard to Find” tells the story of a grandmother who thought of herself a lady. This woman would never stop giving her opinion about anything that crossed her path. Before taking a trip with her family, she mentioned to the son she lived with, Bailey, about a prisoner that had just escaped from jail. This man would call himself “the Misfit.” The family spends their day driving and have a car accident along the road. A car slows down and helps them. Unexpectedly, one of the three men inside the car was the Misfit, who was carrying a gun. The family is separated behind the trees until the grandmother is left alone with the man. The woman converses for the last time about faith. She pronounces words that show the Misfit the hypocrisy hidden behind her words.
I think the author identifies herself with the Misfit’s and the grandmother’s beliefs. Throughout the story, we can see that the grandmother could never adapt to the rest of the family. Her son’s family was conservative in comparison to her. Nobody in the story seems to agree with her opinions or desires. There is not a moment in which the grandmother mentions her catholic beliefs, until she encounters with the Misfit. I see him as a soiled prophet. His story led me to think that he had believed once in God and, because of his life, as he mentions it, “being buried alive,” he does not have faith anymore. I think that the Misfit being held in jail means the death of his Catholicism, which is a symbolism for the death of the grandmother, since her faith in Jesus could not save her.
I think that the lack of sympathy by the grandmother’s family prior to their execution meant that they seemed somehow agreeable with her death. Even her granddaughter was not crying when she was being separated from the old woman. Instead, she was bothered by the fact that someone was telling her what to do.

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is an iconic collection of ten short stories. Among these stories, there are seven that, IMHO, are really great. Six of these are: "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", "The River", "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", "A Circle of Fire", "Good Country People", and "The Displaced Person". Meanwhile, the title of the seventh story, "The Artificial N*****", contains a word that the store.com deems offensive. Regardless, read them all.

In one way or another, these seven stories all involve "country people," which, in Flannery's world, are hard-working but not necessarily well-off Southerners, many living near Atlanta in the 1940s. Thereafter, narrative elements these seven stories share often include the presence of Evangelical Christianity, social assumptions lingering from the Jim Crow era, pathetic isolation, and a plausible outbreak of violence, cruelty, or tragedy.

Before I read AGMIHtF, I knew O'Connor only by her reputation. This, in brief, asserted that she wrote gothic and violent stories about the rural south, sometimes with Catholic undertones. Well, it turns out this is exactly what Flannery does write about. But she makes it work, big time.

At the same time, her reputation--as least as it was known to me--did not suggest that Flannery has a good sense of humor--she does--or that she is skilled at layering her stories--she is--so that the dilemmas her characters face have moral depth. Finally, I didn't realize her ability to evoke or capture character was the engine that makes the gothic element of her sensibility so successful. Here, for example, is the Judge, the deceased husband of Mrs. McIntyre in "The Displaced Person".

"He was a dirty, snuff-dipping Court House figure, famous all over the county for being rich, who wore hightop shoes, a string tie, a gray suit with a black stripe in it, and a yellowed panama hat, winter and summer. His teeth and hair were tobacco-colored and his face a clay pink pitted and tracked with mysterious prehistoric-looking marks, as if he had been unearthed by fossils. There had been a peculiar odor about him of sweaty fondled bills...but when he died his estate proved to be bankrupt. He left her a mortgaged house and fifty acres that he had managed to cut the timber off before he died. It was as if, as the final triumph of a successful life, he had been able to take everything with him."

This is a terrific collection and is highly recommended.

Thirty-odd years after I first read these stories, I heard them read aloud. Marguerite Gavin, who often brings her supple, adept voice to mysteries, is well suited to dramatizing for Blackstone Audio the eccentrics, bigots, and drifters of Southern Gothic, who populate these stories published in the mid-1950s.

Many of Flannery O'Connor's stories were assigned in my college course on Religious Themes in American literature, and Theology and Literature, unsurprisingly. Those in the know with Scripture, and also with Protestant down-home versions of how it's interpreted as opposed to (at least pre-Vatican II) Catholic orthodoxy can draw out strands of the rich intellectual and spiritual traditions inspiring O'Connor, which her letters document well published as "The Habit of Being." Some also are in the handsome Library of America edition of her writings.

Yet, these often lively stories remain entertaining and thoughtful for all. They're accessible for those without religious grounding, even if such an audience will miss many references and allusions, in a time when fewer are raised with such literacy. I've tried to teach "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" with its grim, bespectacled Misfit and its desperate, caricatured, but in the end oddly endearing if no less annoying grandmother. It worked to put off more than it won over. The dark humor of "Good Country People" might be appreciated for those with a taste for bad taste, rather than those mystified by satire with an edge and a disturbing sense of how the transcendent descends. Perhaps such stories are better recommended than analyzed in a classroom--they may lose some energy when taken apart too diligently, however well intended the dissection may be.

O'Connor's craft in such stories, getting us to laugh at those she satirizes, like Hulga in "Good Country People," before going on to reveal her protagonists' vulnerability, reveals O'Connor's considerable talent. Gavin's skill works to enhance those in stories that on paper held less interest for me. "The Artificial N[...]" (the store rejected my review when I wrote that noun out) with its relentless evocation of a terrible Atlanta cityscape as seen by a cruel old man and his grandson sizzles. Racial themes simmer in many contexts here, even if they rarely boil over: this tension O'Connor exploits deftly. "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" with its old Confederate as in a museum trotted out works better as a vocal performance than a story, for me; similarly, "The River" felt very symbolic and predestined with its ending, and for me this (as with some others included here) lacks the lighter touch of O'Connor's best stories, but listening to it, it kept my interest more.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" cannot be topped for sheer meanness; "A Circle in the Fire" and "A Temple of the Holy Ghost" were both solid stories, even if their plots failed to intrigue me as much as others. "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" with its comedy turned terror by skillful foreshadowing and "Good Country People" with what feels like Flannery's basis in gleeful yet poignant semi-self-caricature remain for me the standouts.

All the same, Gavin's navigation of Irish and Polish as well as diverse Southern accents for "The Displaced Person" enriched this lengthier story. The last in the collection, it tackles issues of alienation, unbelief, and conversion in a more sustained, character-driven manner which displays an intriguing application of Cold War paranoia, post-Holocaust repulsion, and relentless poetic or divine justice as felt by an insecure white woman running a motley crew of field hands. Some stories sticking in the memory more than others. But all merit attention. Tt's a recommended introduction to her storytelling, followed by the ambitious, tense ones she was working on when she died, "Everything That Rises Must Converge."

If the rest of the short stories in this book are as good as "A good Man Is Hard to Find"
I will be thrilled. The end is traumatic! It had to end like it ended---there was no other way.
But what beautiful prose, the characters jumped right off the page and into your heart. The main
character was the grandmother. She was never named, just called the grandmother. But she was alive,
painted vividly by O'Connor. She drove everybody nuts, and was bound to remind the reader of someone.
The children were real, their conversation and squabbles live in my memory. Bailey, the disgruntled son,
and father of the children had an attitude many of us see in our grown children. Great, great story.

With authentic southern dialect, O’Connor manages to shock the reader in a way so matter of fact that the effect is stunning. Good and evil, religious themes, and the dark side of humanity are explored and exposed, but not without a healthy dose of dry humor. Readers will appreciate her excellent use of imagery, metaphor, and personification, all of which magically convey character, tone, and theme in a few short pages. I believe O’Connor is the foremost example of a short fiction writer, particularly of southern writers. She’s a master of the form. Highly recommended!

It deserves its billing as one of American literature's preeminent 20th century short story collections. O'Connor writes with an unique combination of lean focus and vivid color. She keeps her sentences short and packed with significant detail while rarely missing opportunities to forward story or character development through dialogue and exposition alike. Some of these stories are more successful than others - the title story, "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", and "Good Country People" are probably the book's most substantial achievements.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find shows why the short story was where Flannery O'Connor's strengths as a writer most flourished. Her only novel previous to this collection was Wise Blood (she would only write one more), to me a rather disappointing and disjointed piece of work.

By contrast, the stories here are tight as a drum, driven by a relentless sense of impending tragedy. O'Connor's ability to create fleshed out characters in a few brushstrokes and to construct scenes of dramatic power driven by exquisitely written dialogue compares very favorably with masters of the form like Ernest Hemingway and J.D. Salinger.

One thing I think is overemphasized about O'Connor, however, at least in this collection, is her Catholicism. While there are certainly some elements and allusions to Catholic faith and practices, it's fairly subtle compared to, say, Graham Greene in books like The Power and the Glory or The End of the Affair, or Evelyn Waugh in Brideshead Revisited.

If you like short stories, you can't really do better than A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

Like all great writers, Flannery O'Connor is a master of her craft, builds upon her experience and addresses the really big questions.

This collection of short stories is accessable to mature teens and adults. Every story is power packed with exact words, names, colors, twists, turns and conclusions. The author's dark, but reallistic, tone resonates on every page. The stories are grounded in the 1950's working class South and reflect that time and place. Yet, readers today will still say "I know these people".

O'Connor seems to be a fish out of water in this place: an aspiring, highly educated, thoughtful woman limited by society and her disability. While this may have shaped the harsh, brutal, critical, shocking side of the stories as well as the consistently sad, morbid, disappointing view of life portrayed, it also propelled her to be honest, expressive, layered, reflective, complex and approachable. Her work is clearly an authentic mirror of her external and internal experience.

Many reviewers say that these stories are "haunting". While the characters are familiar and can be dismissed as southern, ignorant, simple-minded, victims, prisoners of a religious sect or culture, this is too easy of a solution. O'Connor pounds away at the themes of hypocrisy, punishment, pride, sin, routine, responsibility, chance and destiny. These recurring themes and her own highly educated character appearing in one story indicate that these are universal issues. The stories are "haunting" because we all face uncontrollable issues like original sin, death, chance, ignorance and fate.

None of these characters conquer the challenges. However, this collection of stories gives the open-minded reader abundant food for thought. Echoing the story of Jacob in the Old Testament, perhaps the opportunity to wrestle with these big questions is THE lesson of our modern age.

I was first introduced to Flannery O'Connor during my junior year of high school. My teacher gave her such glowing praise and reviews and actually retold us the story "Good Country People" as she assigned us to read "A Good Man Is Hard To Find." I was immediately hooked based on these two stories. I had never had such a reading experience which frightened and disturbed me while causing me to laugh from morbid situations. When I found this book I bought it immediately and devoured it. I wanted to know if the title story was as chilling as I remember...it is! I also wanted to see if Flannery O'Connor had more disturbing and hilarious fiction...she did! This book is truly one of my favorites. I only loan it out to those I trust will return it because every now and then I delve into this unsettling southern gothic collection just for the reminder of what great short stories are. Since I am from the south I can relate to these characters and their attitudes. I have seen these people and their notions toward life as I grew up in North Carolina. I know these people. They are truly like this; they are warped, funny, tragic, and horrific all at once. After reading this collection I immediately bought O'Connor's novels and other collections and read them too. She is truly one of my favorite authors and I have read nothing by her that I have not enjoyed. I suggest you give this book a chance, especially if you have a gallows humor. Be warned, however, they are dark and disturbing and offer what one critic called a "proper scaring."

I had been studying Faulkner and it possessed me to pick up a few books by the many writers who were influenced by him. One of the books I picked up in Asheville, NC was a collection of short stories (A Good Man is Hard to Find) by Miss O'Connor. The stories hit me like a ton of bricks. It is powerful prose. I wondered, who is this Flannery O'Connor? Well, she was a woman born into a Catholic household in Savannah, Georgia. She was a devout Catholic. That is key. She was struck with Lupus as a young woman and died at the age of 39. She never married and kept much to herself at her Georgia farm. Being Catholic in the south in the 30s, 40s and 50s put one in the minority. To put it mildly I don't think she was much impressed by the redneck culture she observed in Georgia. However, I think her stories are mostly about the grace of God. All these sad and confused creatures (as hard as it might seem) are loved by and forgiven by God. I think that is what she believed anyway. Accept the grace of God. That's my take on these short stories. O'Connor died in '64 and I wonder what she would think of the depravity of the American culture in 2012? I highly recommend A Good Man is Hard to Find and the other nine stories in the collection. It will make you think.

A family on vacation encounters a cold-blooded gang, a gullible and naive housewife is struck by a mysterious (but hilariously common) "illness," a 104-year-old Civil War veteran is a featured guest at his 62-year-old daughter's high school graduation--each of O'Connor's stories portray characters in improbable, bizarre, and ultimately harrowing situations. These tales are weird, surprising, tense, comical, and often unforgettable--but what exactly do they all mean?

O'Connor was often frustrated by the sense that readers and reviewers misunderstood both the intents and the themes of her stories. In her first letter to a fan from Atlanta who became a frequent correspondent, she complained that "she was mighty tired of reading reviews that call 'A Good Man' brutal and sarcastic" and that "when I see these stories described as horror stories I am always amused because the reviewer has hold of the wrong horror."

I think she sells herself short with this assessment, however. Her stories are brutal, they certainly can be sarcastic--and the fact that readers confuse the horror is confirmation of the ambiguous and harrowing (and, yes, Gothic) underworld her characters inhabit. The reason her stories are classics of the form--and the ten stories in this collection are among the best I've ever read--is not only because they are creepy and grotesque, or because she is the master of the ominous set-up and the unexpected ending, but also because after you've found out what happened you'll probably lie awake wondering why it happened.

"Christian realism" was how O'Connor described her spiritual stance; "I write the way I do because (not though) I am a Catholic. . . . I am a Catholic peculiarly possessed of the modern consciousness." Decades of critics have argued over the theological underpinnings of her fiction, but an assessment by a fellow author named George Clay helped me make sense of her themes--and the author herself approvingly summarized his remarks in her own correspondence: "[Clay's] interesting comment was that the best of my work sounded like the Old Testament would sound if it were being written today--in as much (partly) as the character's relation is directly with God rather than with other people's." It's not hard to find the ghosts of Job, Ruth, Samson, Esther, Isaac, Daniel, and others in all of her stories.

Whether these echoes make for good theology will depend on the reader's own spiritual inclinations--but they certainly make good reading. My favorite piece in this collection is "Good Country People," probably O'Connor's most famous (excepting the title story). Describing a lonely woman with an artificial leg who is seduced by a traveling Bible salesman, the story veers into an inexplicable climax that is both devastating and melancholy. And those two words pretty much sum up any of the stories you'll find here.

After eventually reading Flannery O'Connor, I can understand the influence she has had on a host of American short story writers. It is as if I can reading Annie Proulx circa 1947.

The stories are spectacularly well written, all tense and claustraphobic as you just know violence or death, or pain are just around the corner. The stories, often unpleasant, sometimes funny but often quite horrific, push you on towards an invariably dramatic climax.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find", the first story, was particuarly awful with its sociopath antagonist and brutal ending. It didn't get much better, although I enjoyed the incisive and sardonic humour of the 12 year-old narrator in "A Temple of the Holy Ghost".

The best story is "A Circle in the Fire". I really felt like I was being held captive on my own farm by the awful teenage boys in the story, and felt for Mrs Cope and her fear of fire - a fear that becomes a living nightmare.

"A Good Country People" could have been a Nick Cave song, with its lecherous bible salesman. In fact, I could imagine him lifting most of the stories for his albums that so often centre on Southern Gothic.

While the writing and plotting is brilliant, I did feel slightly unhinged with the constantly depressed theme running through the stories - even if some do find some kind of salvation at the end - and the damaged, broken characters. O'Connor has the ability to remove herself completely from a story, entering the head of a character completely and utterly. Traumatic, but timeless, tales.

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 the 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.

"The old woman and her daughter were sitting on their porch when they saw Mr. Shiftlet come up their road for the first time. The old woman slid to the edge of her chair and leaned forward, shading her eyesfrom the piercing sunset with her hand. The daughter could not see far in front of her and continued to play with her fingers. Although the old woman lived in this desolate spot with only her daughter and she had never seen Mr. Shiftlet before, she could tell, even from a distance, that he was a tramp and no one to be afraid of..."

Absolutely the highest recommendation.

Recently I was browsing trough bookstores in the town where I study, when I stumbled upon a book called "A good man is hard to find". I remembered reading about it somewhere, remembered that it held high place on bestselling list in my country, and, as it was on discount and I was having extra money, the book finished on my shelf where it remained for a few weeks. Then suddenly inspiration came to me and I begun to read.

And I read, and read, and finished the book in few hours. Few hours of frantic turning of pages not being able to lift my eyes from black letters.

Well, what's in it, you ask? Afterword of the book mentions struggle of men vs. nihilism, struggle of good vs. hatred, and morbidity within not being just that. But, if we put aside afterword we'll find ourselves in a world carefully built. With people living and breathing (and breeding), murdering, lying, envying and people with every other aspect of life. Sometimes you just forget that you're being oulled into the literary world, and sometimes you just forget to wonder - can it really be truth.

Evidently, author knew the world that surrounded him. And she was well aware of it.

My life is not changed after this book, buit somehow, now, I feel thankfull for my life being what it is.

Some other options presented here just scared me.

And normality of them is the thing that terrifies the most.

Having lived in the South (though some might claim that Atlanta is not) during a bit more than a decade of my formative years (the `20's), I've read at least "my share" of southern writers, the famous, and the obscure. In the former, I'm still striving to read all of Faulkner, and then there is also Richard Wright, Eudora Welty, Carson McCullers, Walter Percy and Harper Lee. Somehow, Flannery O'Connor has always eluded me, though this book has sat on my bookshelf for a couple of decades. Finally, a fellow reviewer, Mike Peterson, who recently read it, pushed it off my bookshelf, and into my reading hands. I'm ambivalent about this book; she seems to be the "Diane Arbus" of southern writers, almost exclusively focusing on the "freaks." It is not that they do not exist - they do - and with perhaps a higher concentration when these stories were written, the `50's, than now. But still... the stories serve to re-enforce some negative stereotypes about the South, including a casual racism.

Nonetheless, within the context of her focus, the stories are simply superb. There is not a weak one in the collection, and I felt that the latter ones were the strongest. "A Late Encounter with the Enemy" concerns a 104 year old Confederate "general" (who may, in actuality, have been a foot soldier) attending the graduation ceremony for his granddaughter, who is in her `60's. "Good Country People" was heart-breaking, in that the message of the story is that they are not. Furthermore, it deals with one of the most difficult problems of the human condition: someone with a physical deformity, who yearns to be "normal," and is betrayed by the person in whom they have trusted in this regard. The last story, and the longest one, is entitled: "The Displaced Person." The aspect of "freakiness" is more muted in this story, but I found some extremely "contemporary" themes. The "displaced person" is a family of Poles, after the Second World War. It is all about immigrants, and how they might work harder (perhaps, in part, because they are more desperate), and even about veterans (of WW I), and how they believe that they might have been treated worse by their government than the "enemy" that they fought. Hum!

The title story portrays events that are at least twice as awful as those in Truman Capote's In Cold Blood. In another story, a "lost" boy, unloved at home, seeks to find Jesus in the river. Two other very memorable ones concern some "country people," a father and his son, visiting Atlanta for the day, with the objective that the son will never want to go back (a counterpoint to: How do you keep them on the farm once they've seen Parée... ) Another "heartbreaker," along the lines of "Good Country People" is "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." And then there is the matter of the "freaks," in this case, hermaphrodites, and how they used to be "exhibits" in county fairs... until the preachers shut them down. Alas, the sorry and the pity.

Ah, those southern idioms that I have not heard in a while, like... "she favors" which means, "looks like." And there are many others, which reflect O'Connor's ear for southern dialogue.

Despite the "freakiness, it remain an excellent (and perhaps for many of us, an overdue) read. 5-stars.

Flannery O'Connor's short stories in A Good Man Is Hard to Find are remarkably well written and, for the most part, deeply demoralizing. O'Connor is one of those supremely talented prose stylists who paint pictures, ones the reader can see clearly in his or her own mind's eye. Occasionally, the pictures are beautiful, especially portraits of nature uncluttered by human intervention -- a sunset in a dusty autumn evening, a luminous full moon shining across the placid surface of a quiet pond, a horizon heavy-laden with blue-green trees rising in the early morning mist.

O'Connor's rendering of the human condition, however, stands in sharp contrast to these depictions of untouched things as they are and as they would be, even if men, women, and children had never set foot on the planet. O'Connor's man-made Deep South is a place of rust, ruin, gross bodily imperfection, and dangerous spiritual confusion.

With these sharply contrasting views of our world, A Good Man Is Hard to Find provides a powerful literary incentive to choose a hermit's existence over any available Deep Southern alternative. There's something solid to be said for life in a tradition-bound society, even a materially impoverished one, but the reader will find very little of it in O'Connor's stories.

Thought and conversation in the world wrought by O'Connor occur through use of platitudes, cliche's, bromides -- time-worn figures of speech that reinforce the meaninglessness of the lives most live. Too often, moreover, these over-used nostrums for making banal sense of things are mean-spirited or self-defeating, just another way of assuring that the discomfort and deadness of everyday life will be collectively repeated. Things need not be this way, they just are, and have been for as long as anyone can remember.

Threats to the the static morbidity of the world as given are dealt with in good time, whether through convenient accidents, self-mortification, steadfast denial, or too literal interpretation of a traditional call to spiritual glory. The occasional novelty, a trick that works, plays on a thorough knowledge of established ways of making do possessed by one who rejects them in favor of nihilism, Deep Southern sociopathy with nothing to fill the void save off-handed cruelty, pain inflicted for little or no gain. O'Connor's characters are so thoroughly imbued with the long-standing status quo that they can't see that the past is dead and is killing them. They destructively deceive themselves, and fail to acknowledge value in the unfamiliar.

O'Connor draws her characters as flawed in ways that make them unwilling and unable to find a place outside the feudal poverty in which they are born, bred, and buried. Scratch the surface of this decaying bastion of tradition and we'll see nothing but the ugliness of its celebrated reprehensible history. How does one escape the socially diseased embrace of a home for the dead and disfigured without having the social and symbolic wherewithal to recognize an alternative?

This is not the kind of place that gives rise to good men, good women, goodwill, or much of anything else good. Even if it did, the good would likely be construed as alien and unnatural, soon rejected by salt-of-the-earth souls who know how things are supposed to be. A brutally static world, the sort of place where a good man wouldn't be valued even if one were to come along. He'd be too different.

Ironically, the story that comes closest to a happy ending is also the most straightforward in its treatment of the durability and holding power of the Old South. That its protagonists represent a devalued race adds additional value to this well-told tale of a day-trip to a big city.

I know very little about Flannery O'Connor beyond the fact that she left us too soon. I can't imagine the source of the dark wisdom and knowledge of commonplace disappointments and everyday horrors in one who wrote when she was so young. With so little time to gather resources, she still managed to make a world, bleak, ugly, and uninspiring though it was, without resorting to convenient stereotypes. This is truly creative writing.

If you are a fan of the grotesque and morbidly humorous, Flannery O'Connor is your girl! I cannot seem to get enough of this woman, and knowing that she was a devout Roman Catholic woman writing around the time of the 50's is even more rewarding considering she was far from the "June Cleaver" type. As a matter of fact, her short stories are still shocking today, which is really saying something. It is not hard to believe that she was influenced both by the Bible AND the Greek tragedies.
Furthermore, the fact that she was sick with lupus and confined to crutches (therefore having to live with her mother) explains much of her sarcasm in stories like "Good Country People" and "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."
It is sad to think of what serious readers missed out on because of her early death (died at age 39 of lupus) but let me tell you something, if you have a thing for black comedy, O'Connor cannot be topped. You will literally find yourself laughing one minute and covering your mouth with a gasp in the next. She is FANTASTIC!! This is the type of collection you can truly enjoy all the way through.
"A Good Man is Hard to Find," "The Life You Save Might Be Your Own," and "Good Country People" are three of the best short stories ever written by man or woman. Buy this book!!

This collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor helped establish her as one of America's greatest Southern writers. In her use of irony, dark humor, and the macabre, she reminds me of Kafka. Sadly, like the Czech master, she died way too young, leaving us to ponder the body of work missed had she lived even a decade longer.

O' Connor's stories are peopled by very flawed characters. Characters who are victims of their harsh upbringing, close minded social environment, and blind to their own cruelties, inadequacies, and prejudices, until forced to change under circumstances of physical and emotional duress. The subtext in these stories involves sin and retribution, redemption and grace. O' Connor's fierce Catholicism is a covert, but ever present force in her writing, as she uses her wit to train a spotlight on the unpleasant underbelly of her world, then focuses it to a laser acuity to attack it's rampant hypocrisy.

The ten short stories in this 1955 collection by Flannery O'Connor expose a grotesque underbelly of the Southern mystique that go far beyond their seemingly simple surface plots. Ms. O'Connor has a flare for dialog as well as a primal understanding of the darkness in people's souls. All her characters have a relationship with God and she combines Christian imagery, an apocalyptic vision of life and a strong element of cruelty. And yet, there is a deeply human element that gives me the shivers because it exposes truths I'd rather not see.
I could tell from the very beginning of each story that something ominous was going to happen. I didn't know when, I didn't know how, and I didn't know exactly what it would be. Always, I was surprised. And yet, when I thought of it later, each story could have gone no other way. All of them had a sad or tragic ending, although some were more awful than others. What keeps the narrative exciting though is a way she has of suddenly disappearing the storyline and taking it up in another place, leaving just enough information to spark the imagination. Then, when I think I have it all figured out, things change again.
Ms. O'Connor writes in simple startling sentences. And most of the stories are no more than 20 or 30 pages long. I found it hard to read one story right after the other however. Each one was so thought provoking that, even though I felt a great deal of discomfort, I wanted to stay with each just a little bit longer. That's because they move much too fast and are too intriguing to stop. Later, when the initial shock of the story is over, is the time to work it out philosophically. And it is then that I could appreciate the mastery of her craft.
This is a truly fine book and I unquestionably give it a high recommendation. It is certainly not for everyone however. These stories haunt uncomfortably. But those willing to explore the dark side of human nature in this small work of art will love it.

The story starts with the grandmother refusing to take a road trip with the family to Florida. The family is unaware of the fact that the grandmother packed the cat. She couldn't stand the thought of leaving it at home and knew her son in law wouldn't allow it either. When the family comes to a stop at Red Sammy's Famous BBQ they meet Red Sammy and his wife. Almost immediately the grandmother and Red Sammy being talking about the Misfit prisoner on the loose. They turn the car around and begin going down a dirt path towards the house. Mid way down no house appears and the grandmother realizes she was mistaken. She jumps up and startles the cat who leaps forward causing the dad to swerve and crash the car. The mother injured herself and everyone else had minor cuts and scrapes. Everyone was pretty upset with the grandmother at this point. Finally the notice a car slowly coming down the hill. When the car stops in front of them they ask for help. The grandmother realizes one of the men is The Misfit. He send two of the men off into the woods with the dad and the Misfit begins to exchange some words with the grandmother. The grandmother keeps telling him he’s not a bad man over and over. Ending the story with three bullets being shot into her chest. 

This is probably one of the best collections of short stories out there. Nobody did short stories better. Written fifty years ago, sure, but reading and re-reading these stories over the years, I have to say that O'Connor was one of the best short story writers of the past century, hands down.

I don't care if it's southern gothic or grotesque or whatever O'Connor is labeled in Academia, or whatever her place in literary history may be, or if some readers disagree and find her stories boring or depressing (sigh); these stories are so effortlessly masterful, and when you read an O'Connor story, it's like hearing a unique singer's voice, Johnny Cash or Otis Redding: you know it's O'Connor the second you start the story. Each one begins at just the right moment, the dialogue and characters and situations are so REAL, despite the outward absurdity of them, she convinces you through her rendering, that these events happened.

Think of it her as the reality TV of the fiction world, as horrible as that may sound. Her characters don't "act" and aren't pawned into position, they are real, and they speak realistically, they behave realistically, and the stories are told in such a way that you feel you aren't reading a story at all, but imagining the same dream she had when she wrote them. She never betrays her characters, never condescends or makes fun of them, and her metaphors, BTW, are the best their were ("her face was as broad and innocent as a cabbage"); the way she dropped into a story, pieced out the characters, how she developed tension and situations that often yield tragic circumstances, her language...well, she does it so convincingly, and I am not one easily convinced.

O'Connor was the genuine article, and this book is the evidence of her indisputible greatness. It's been said that O'Connor claimed she wrote all these stories as parables, and I think when you read them you'll see (and what many people have trouble with) is that her stories do have a picaresque quality to them, and the characters at times do seem like stock southern characters. But its how well she knows these characters, how she protrays them that makes them so memorable. She rose to fame being one of the voices of the South - and perhaps some of the book is therefore dated and not as cutting edge as it was then. But it has endured, on the strength and appeal of the stories.

Is O'Connor for everyone? Heck no. But I guarantee you - guarantee you - if you read one of her stories, even if you don't like it, it'll haunt you for years, you'll remember all the little moments as if you'd dreamt them yourself. And you'll come back, whether by accident or purposefully, and you'll re-read the story, and it'll mess you up. She's THAT good.

O'Connor is one of my three favorite Southern writers, along with Carson McCullers and William Faulkner. I just love all that gothy/dark humor, the grotesque characters with their own unique beauty twisted with the ugliness of pride, involved in complex and deformed situations, the bizarre and twisted obsession with Christianity into a warped sense of morality. O'Connor's stories mainly focus on female protagonists that lose a grip on their power over their world, fall from grace and pride, mostly due to shady male figures. She spins fascinating and tragic, yet beautiful tales with a poetic, real style with the third-person limited perspective. Besides Good Country People, my favorite story in this collection was A Temple of the Holy Ghost and A Late Encounter with the Enemy. Excellent short stories from an amazing author. Grade: A

O'Connor is a fantastic writer. While she chafed at being characterized as cynical, these are hard-bitten stories that present an unvarnished view of human nature.

The book takes its title from the first and best story in the collection. There is a line at the end of the story -- "she'd have been a good woman if it had been someone there to shoot her every minute of her life" -- that is about as perfect and powerful as I've ever read. It sums up the story, the character of the old woman in question, and the nature of death bed conversions. Some critics read all sorts of complex symbolism and religious meanings into O'Connor's stroies. But I think her strength is in setting up a straightforward moral parable in a story that never seems to end well, perhaps as is true with life in general. She writes powerfully about human nature and morality.

Another of my favorite stories concerns the psychology and hypocrisy of a man who essentially steals a woman's mentally disabled daughter and abandons her and who then retreats to a maudlin sentimentality. The last story in the collection, "The Displaced Person", deals with the Holocaust of all things, and demonstrates the deficit in human empathy that is engrained in our culture.

All of the stories are set in the South in the "Southern Gothic" tradition.

O'Connor is a truly great writer, and I highly recommend this collection.

In the story “A good man is hard to find” the author portray how she see what happens in a world where we walk away from God. Not walking away from her catholics beliefs because she shows what the characters believe about God such as Jesus Christ. Misfit, looks at himself as somebody that doesn’t fit in this world. He looks at himself as an agent of the devil. He talks about Jesus as somebody that came to disturb with the normal and he feels that it shouldn’t be like that. Due to his past he has many issues within himself because he feels that everything he does is right even when its not. In the story, the characters don’t show compassion towards the others. Since the beginning of the story the characters show to be apathetic one to another and that make the story more interesting because although they are family there differences among them. I think is a good story to reflect upon what happens in the world and how many people live worrying about the right or bads that we do, perhaps i feel that we need to have something to believe to define if it is actually right or wrong.

Flattery O. is my favorite author. Would that she had lived a few more years. I intend to re-read each one again slowly so as to absorb the perfection of her metaphoric language, the irony,characterization,dialogue,plot,etc. throughout each story.

Each time thru each story brings new thrills.

The ten short stories in this collection are definitely masterpieces. Neither too long or too short, the stories suggest whole worlds, entire lives (and deaths) with just the right number of verbal brushstrokes. Never preachy or self-righteous, they are yet infused with a deep, complex spirituality that seems to consist of an eccentric and compelling hybrid of Roman Catholicism's quiet mysticism and Southern Protestantism's revivalism and rigor. That said, this is not "chicken soup for the soul"...pretty much every story has a dark edge, and in most of them the author gets you with this impending sense of dread that things are going to go to heck in a hand basket, the only question is how (this makes the book awfully hard to put down, by the way). And she has an incredible talent of capturing the rhythms and characteristic expressions of Southern English without too much Mark Twain twang. In short, this is hands down a classic of American literature.

This Roman Catholic author’s writings are grotesque and sobering. She profoundly displays Christian orthodoxy against modernism, and Southern-Protestantism that is hypocritical. Themes include the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, the Resurrection, and the person of Christ. Not recommended for the light-hearted or immature.

The title of this story is also the title of O'Connor's first collection of short stories. Told in third-person, the focus is on the Grandmother's perspective of events. O'Connor does a brilliant job of foreshadowing, entertaining, shocking, and forcing the reader to ask difficult questions. She is relentless in her depiction of these characters-they are not likable. And so, by creating such annoying, unsympathetic characters, O'Connor has carefully set the premise for her main argument: the grace of God is for everyone; even the most unlikable.

The story begins when a family packs up their car and heads south from Tennessee to Florida for a family vacation. The family is as annoying to the reader as they are to each other. The Grandmother is the most annoying of them all. She complains that she doesn't want to go, but she's the first one ready to go. She sneaks her cat into the car, even though she's been told not to bring it along, and she wears her best dress and hat-in case she winds up dead on the side of the road, she explains, people will know she was a lady. Along the way the family stops to eat and the Grandmother gets into a conversation with the proprietor about a convict on the loose---he is known as The Misfit.

Through this character, The Misfit, O'Connor explores the Christian concept of "grace"-that a divine pardon from God is available simply for the asking. In the story, it is the Grandmother-a small-minded, cantankerous, and bossy old woman-who realizes grace at the moment of her death, when she reaches out to the Misfit and all of a sudden sees him as one of her own children. For O'Connor, God's grace is a power outside the character, a moment of epiphany. Nonetheless, her characters are usually too stubborn or unwilling to acknowledge the grace of God.

For more information on the life and works of Flannery O'Connor and other great southern authors visit [...]

Those looking to write professionally should read Flannery O'Connor. She will take you to school. There is so much self-satisfied low-grade nonsense calling itself 'literature' these days. This collection will straighten you out. Not all the stories are winners but half of them are really something and resonate in the brain long after you've read them. The author understands human nature better than nearly anyone I've read. That's why she can cough up hairballs more authentic than anything Norman Mailer wrote (including Naked & the Dead). It's alarming how well she understands people and how quickly we can let things go wrong, how little faith a lot of us really have and mostly how fast we can be to throw the first stone. I will be reading this again. The collection ends up a little bit off-balance due to the last longer story not warranting the extra length. If that one had been cut in half it would rock very hard.

The story begins innocently enough, O'Connor introduces the character of the Misfit, an escaped murderer who kills the entire family at the end of the story. Through this character, O'Connor explores the Christian concept of "grace"--that a divine pardon from God is available simply for the asking. In the story, it is the Grandmother--a petty, cantankerous, and overbearing individual--who attains grace at the moment of her death, when she reaches out to the Misfit and recognizes him as one of her own children. For O'Connor, God's grace is a force outside the character, something undeserved, an insight or moment of epiphany. Often, however, O'Connor's characters miss moments of opportunity to make some connection; their spiritual blindness keeps them from seeing truth.

When I first started reading this book I thought that it was quite unusual. However, as I started to look more deeply at the stories and attemped to analyze them I found that the collection of short stories provided some very striking social commentaries. Flannery O'Connor included stories dealing with the subjects of relgion, race, and women. Every story indcluded in the work has one, if not all, of these ideas incorporated. Through her stories she tries to get people to think about the way things are. She tries to bring to light the darker sides of the issues she addresses. For example, The River tells about a little boy who ends up being baptized in a river. The rest of the story is focused on the boy's reaction to the experience and his actions as a result of the baptism.
This collection of stories, or commentaries, is also interesting because one isn't able to figure out the significance of the story until the very end. The ending of many of the stories is unexpected and even shocking. These are not "happily-ever-after" endings. The endings are very blunt and startling, yet they still leave the reader with a sense of closure. After I read the first couple of stories I realized how much my view of the story could change after reading the final paragraph or two. It made me very excited to get to the ending of each of the subsequent stories. The surprising endings usually helped to further eluminate O'Connor's view on the subject she was addressing. They were her final thoughts on the subject. They weren't words merely put down to effectively end a paragraph or story. They were words meant to cement an idea and leave a lasting impact in the reader's mind.
Additionally, the stories are very interesting when viewed in the context of the author's own life. It seems as if Flannery O'Connor put a part of herself into many of the characters in her stories. Many of the characters are middle-aged women who have some kind of disablity or sickness and are not married (they usually don't have any romantical partner). O'Connor was never married and she was sick for most of the time whe wrote these stories. Knowing some of her background information makes the stories interesting. One can try and find out how the stories and her life are interrelated.
Consequently, this collection of stories by Flannery O'Connor was very interesting. I would recommend this book. It is not, however, escape reading. It is reading that requires effort and thought. It does not end happily-every-after, but it does fill the mind with thoughts about people and society. It could cause one to more closely examine the world he/she lives in and the people he/she interacts with. I know that it made me think.

Never having heard of Flannery O'Connor, let alone having read any of her works, I was in for quite a surpise when I picked up A Good Man is Hard to Find. Her style and voice jump out in the first page and continue throughout all her short stories. She also has common themes that dominate or atleast influence each of her fictional stories.
O'Connor uses much imagery and detail in describing scenes but it's not too over-flowery. One particular note of mention is in The River where she uses "skeleton" to describe several of the characters five times throughout. This was used in describing a woman as well as a man; however, most of the male characters in other stories are pictured with grotesque and unpleasant features.
She rarely uses commas, which gives way to consistent run-ons--independent clause after independent clause after independent clause all combined with "and." Having grown up in the South herself, most settings are in the South such as Georgia and Tennessee. Her style of writing reflects their speech patterns and thought. They have a southern way of thinking which is displayed through the narrator as well as dialogue.
There seemed to be an overwhelming pattern for the main character to be nonchalantly hypocritical. To name a few: the grandma in a Good Man is Hard to Find, the child in a Temple of the Holy Ghost, Ruby in a Stroke of Good Fortune, and Tom from the Life You Save May Be Your Own. They all believe in their own goodness yet display overt flaws. Each situation is different of course; but for example, Ruby hates her mother for her ignorance when the entire story is about her defiant ignorance of her pregnancy.
O'Connor's stories speak of "the good ole days" and pose life questions about the nature of man. There is a family theme as well as religious one seen throughout. Many characters speak of prayer and the Holy Spirit. This gives the idea of a search, which is often common to those searching religion for their purpose in life. However, there is a moment in each where grace is rejected. They are offered something permanent and concrete yet choose a different path, such as Tom in the Life You Save May Be Your Own when he leaves his newly-wed wife and continues on the road.
The endings offer no definite resolutions. The main character's death is either stated or implied in several stories, including A Good Man is Hard to Find and The River. Many questions remained unanswered for the reader. Perhaps the characters' searches still continues.
Over all, Flannery O'Connor is a brilliant author who is true to life as she sees it. She leaves you questioning yet satisfied!

Flannery O'Connor is often referred to as a master of the short story. At first glance and speedy reading of her stories in this book I was confused as to why she had earned such a lofty title. Strangely, after a day or so of reading her book I couldn't stop thinking about the different stories (character's, plot, etc). I then decided to giver her book (and title) a fair chance by reading the stories again, this time thoughtfully. I thorougly enjoyed the result and discovery of doing so.
O'Connor masterfully capitvaters her readers from the start with a subtle voice that becons and lures the readerinto her web of a story. After weaving the character's and their nunances, along with the different symbolic activities that occur cleverly together, she adds the clingher to the story--a bizzarre twist that leaves the reader to onder the sometimes disturbing events that previoulsly passed.
While I was in my phase of pondering, I was shocked to realize that I could relate to some of her characters in some way or another, and after discussing the book with my peers, they all came to the same conclusion as well. O'Connor seems to capture the different struggles that life brings and her readers relate to the characters (regaurdless of the story) or will know people like unto those that she describes.
Her short stories touch the core of people and their lives. Not only that, but her stories are a perfect balance of description,tone and voice, action, dialogue and such that leave the reader in their own pondering stage, and affect the reader for much longer than the initial reading. Flanner O'Connor is an excellent story teller, and definitley deserving of the title "master of the short story". This book is an excellent choice for people everywhere.

In A Good Man is Hard, to Find, Flannery O'Connor proves herself as the master of the short story. Through ten provocative, delightful, and at the same time disturbing stories, O'Connor paints a vivid picture of the Deep South while commenting on life and the different values that God plays in people's lives.
Flannery is brilliant writer whose experience in deep Southern Georgia shines through her language and characters. Each of her stories reflects a new detail of life in the south in the 1940's and 50's ranging from black prejudice, to staunch-almost ludicrous-religious fanaticism. Most of her stories concern people who live on family farms in the middle of nowhere and have little contact with the outside world. From this setting, Flannery has a lot of flexibility to develop her characters who are often without contact outside of their immediate family for days or even weeks on end and thus are believable representatives of southern heritage and culture.
Perhaps the most distinguishing part of O'Connor's writing, is her ability to create larger-than-life characters who's personalities are both exciting and disturbing: a woman who denies her own pregnancy; a colorful grandmother who refuses to see the truth of the lethal Misfit; and a one-armed vagabond who robs a innocent woman of her dearest possession. Each character represents and portrays a person whose personality and view of life is so set and unbending that their response to adversity leads to sadness and often death. Each ending leaves the reader deep in thought, and searching within his/her own soul for answers to the character's actions. She seems to have a way with words so that just by describing one of her characters, she almost tells a story of their persona, mentality, and background.
O'Connor's ability to write is sheer genius, and A Good Man is Hard to Find is nothing short of her best work. It deserves every bit of praise that can be heaped upon it.

In A Good Man is Hard, to Find, Flannery O'Connor proves herself as the master of the short story. Through ten provocative, delightful, and at the same time disturbing stories, O'Connor paints a vivid picture of the Deep South while commenting on life and the different values that God plays in people's lives.
Flannery is brilliant writer whose experience in deep Southern Georgia shines through her language and characters. Each of her stories reflects a new detail of life in the south in the 1940's and 50's ranging from black prejudice, to staunch-almost ludicrous-religious fanaticism. Most of her stories concern people who live on family farms in the middle of nowhere and have little contact with the outside world. From this setting, Flannery has a lot of flexibility to develop her characters who are often without contact outside of their immediate family for days or even weeks on end and thus are believable representatives of southern heritage and culture.
Perhaps the most distinguishing part of O'Connor's writing, is her ability to create larger-than-life characters who's personalities are both exciting and disturbing: a woman who denies her own pregnancy; a colorful grandmother who refuses to see the truth of the lethal Misfit; and a one-armed vagabond who robs a innocent woman of her dearest possession. Each character represents and portrays a person whose personality and view of life is so set and unbending that their response to adversity leads to sadness and often death. Each ending leaves the reader deep in thought, and searching within his/her own soul for answers to the character's actions. She seems to have a way with words so that just by describing one of her characters, she almost tells a story of their persona, mentality, and background.
O'Connor's ability to write is sheer genius, and A Good Man is Hard to Find is nothing short of her best work. It deserves every bit of praise that can be heaped upon it.

A good story is hard to find, one that you can sit down and read through, and then go back to re-read and re-read and re-read. Flannery O'Connor, however, wrote strong compelling fiction. And, in my opinion, her kind of stories are GREAT and how are hard to come by from other authors of our day and age.

My favorite of the stories is her feature story, A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. This story is about a self-diluted grandmother living in a fantasy world that clashes with the cold hard reality of the escaped convict named The Misfit.

Her stories have a keen eye for detail and a provide much more than what seems to be on the surface. Her short stories are definitely worth reading... and who knows, maybe you'll re-read and re-read.

I have always enjoyed Flannery's work. It's violence. It's portrayal of archaic (hopefully) racial issues. Her work is a tapestry of hate, history, social commentary and so on. One must look beyond the situational to the intent.

I have recommended her work to many friends and realtives. The response is just as unpredicatable as the artist's words. Some have thanked me for the introduction, some have requested that I never recommed anything else to them.

I still stand by my opinions of this truly eccentric literary mastermind.

When I first encountered Flannery O'Connor's writing in the collection "A Good Man Is Hard to Find (and other short stories)", I found it difficult to follow O'Connor's train of thought and was confused as to where she was headed in her stories. However, upon a second and even a third glance, the almost hidden themes and meanings behind the stories appeared and I was presented with a very vivid picture of Southern life, religion, and just life in general. In each of her stories, O'Connor explores human nature and the turns it can take. The religious undertones emphasize her beliefs that man cannot save himself by relying upon the arm of flesh.
O'Connor portrays her ideas and beliefs through her characters. With effective use of imagery and intense detail, a moving scene is painted and the reader is show life and its challenges through the eyes of children, parents, vagabonds, and wanted criminals. With each story, O'Connor stresses the point that not only is human nature confusing and complicated, it destroys itself. While reading, I was struck by the obvious lack of characters that seemed moral in her stories. They all had flaws, and some more obvious than others. A good man truly is hard to find in these stories, but perhaps that is the point. Her religious background becomes apparent as the reader continually sees the lives of her characters ruined because they tried to rely too heavily upon the mortal things and became engulfed in pride.
I really enjoyed reading Flannery O'Connor. Her stories and the ideas portrayed therein can be chilling at times and often disturbing, but their ability to make the reader sit back and ponder upon his or her life makes them truly outstanding. I would recommend this collection to anyone who is looking for not only good stories, but ones that require thought and have meaning.

While reading her group of short stories, I saw a deep image of the south and of the southern people. O'connor uses the dialect of the south all throughout her stories, probably because she has grown up in it. She also uses characters that reflect southern life to help us relate to the people. I enjoyed reading about the grandma in A Good Man Is Hard to Find. She is a stubborn, old lady who has does things her own way, and she enjoys reflecting on the good old days. I loved reading about her because I could imagine being in the car with her for a long drive on vacation. She is also hypocritical about everything, such as her bringing the cat in the car even though this is being distrusting. This also shows in the Temple of the Holy Ghost; the little girl is very condemning and critical of the two girls staying with her. These characters are the 'good' ones yet they display weaknesses. I like to see faults in the main characters because it makes them more life-like. They aren't on a superman-type level that you can't connect with. O'connor has done an excellent job of making the characters real for everyone, while also having them fit into the southern scene. This made the short stories really interesting for me.

Personally, I thought this book was pretty interesting. I don't see how most of it is comical with people dying and in a constant search for grace. However, each story had an ironic twist encorporated into it that made me cringe in disbelief and disgust as I read each story. The stories all had an ironic twist that altered what I imagined would happen or was set up to happen. My opinions of the small boy from "River", the grandma in "A Good Man is Hard to Find", the one armed man in "The Life You Save May be your Own", and the man selling bibles in "Good Country People" all changed when I was at the end of the stories.
O'Conner kept my attention by adequetly developing the stories then struck me away making me ponder what she just said and why she said it. In most of these stories O'Conner seems to include a thought that people can't always be trusted and will often act differently, rather than show their true nature, in order to obtain self gain. That's probably what makes these stories so ironic. O'Conner carefully builds the characters up only to destroy the image she first created and replace it with one showing the true side and intentions of people. She's a good author and is able to encompass the reader with the dialogue and religious beliefs of those she wrote about.

From her classic portrayal of the psychotic character, THE MISFIT, to the surgical disection of religion and morality in "Good Country People," Flannery O'Connor's pitch perfect prose and dark tinged view of a langorous south hold up as well as Hemingway and Fitzgerald. Only Faulkner remains a cut above these masters, but Flannery carved out her own niche through her unflinching portraits of characters that under a lesser writer's pen would be see as cartoon Grotesques instead of true Gothic horror in the humid shade of Southern oaks..in a way Flannery is a direct descendant of Isak Denisan whose SEVEN GOTHIC TALES should be a European companion piece to A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND. God Bless, her slightly demented but pure literary soul: race, religion, violence, family, love and faith..it's a here in the twisted kudzu vines of Ms. O'Connor's tales.

I recommend reading Linda Linguvic's review, she is dead right. Reading Ms. O'Connor stories is time well invested, and I agree one at a time is about all you can to digest, its like Harper Lee meets Edger Allan Poe. I always find myself in surreal situations that remind me of a Flannery O'Conner story...STOP READING AT THIS POINT AND GO TO LINDAS REVIEW...You see I am in a witness protection program and the only way I can communicate with my family is through the store...sad but false.Which reminds me of when I was a kid visiting my grand parents and favorite uncle in North Carolina (we stayed with them every summer until they told my folks to stop). My mom, grandparents,uncle and brother went a visitin' some obscure relatives in a town that seemed to make my grandfather grumpy, reckon that would have been any town USA. However this particular town was near another particular town that held something of interest, the spaghetti man, or as my grandfather called him the dummy. They called him the spaghetti man because he was Italian, he had worked for a circus and happened to die in the nearby town I mentioned, back in the early 20th century is my guess. The manager of the circus only gave the local funeral director a deposit for the burial with the promise of returning with final payment, which never came. So the Spaghetti man/mummy/dummy remained in his freezer for years. The son inherited the business as well as the dummy as I will refer to him from this sentence on until the end of my review. Well back in the 60's my brother, uncle and to a lesser degree myself badgered my grandfather enough that he agreed to leave the family gathering to go find the dummy. He found the town just fine it being on the map and all, but had to ask directions to find the dummy "where's the dummy"? after several blind alleys we found the funeral home and in the garage the owner took us for a small fee to the garage, he opened the freezer and there in the flesh was a shrunken up freezer burnt dummy! One of those moments you never forget, a certain smell might take you back or a foreign accent, but you dont forget those memory's by god! cause that's what life's made of, memories and things like that, eating too. Years later in the year 2000 I visited my folks in NC and in honor of the dummy I went to Target and purchased a white T shirt a couple of sizes to big and a black marker. I laid the T-shirt on my kitchen table and scrawled "I seen the dummy" across the front and into the armpit. The next day I showered,shaved and put on my new shirt, drove to the airport early , requested exit row (I'm above average in height you know) and flew to Charlotte. I then boarded a commuter plane to New Bern and the flight attendant asked me what my shirt said and I told her "I seen the dummy" ...Even though I was in the front row and she had to sit in the jump seat in front of me she was sort of cool and impersonal the rest of the flight, people you figure them out? If you like reading, buy Flannery O'Conner its not a walk in the park but you aint no dummy now are you?

Each of the short stories in Flannery O'Connor's collection describes a religious theme through a cast of arrogant, ignorant, and foolish characters. My favorite story was "The Displaced Person", a story in which Mrs. McIntyre, a proud, controlling, and frugal woman hires a Displaced Person- a Polish refugee- with his family, to work on her farm. This story was my favorite because of its complexity and artful use of imagery througout the work.
One of the most prominent ideas in this story is Mrs. McIntyre's rejection of Christ in her life, which is visible to the reader through her careless atttitude towards the peacock and the Displaced Person. The story begins with the peacock, a bird oddly out of place, wandering in its beauty on the otherwise barren farm. Mrs. McIntyre ignores the bird's splendor and mocks the priest's fascination with the creature. She sees no use for the bird and has allowed the others to die out, keeping this one only out of a sense of obligation to her late husband, just as she only continues to practice religion out of a feeling of obligation. She has no real faith in Christ and no use for His mercy, as she says, "'I'm a logical practical woman and there [is] no . . . Christ Our Lord.'" Mrs. McIntyre considers Christ to be "'just another'" Displaced Person, who like the peacock is in a strange land where his beauty goes unappreciated, and who is worthy of suspicion because of his uncommon nature. O'Connor uses the image of the peacock as Christ particularly effectively in a conversation between Mrs. McIntyre and a priest when the peacock opens its tail. In this instance, neither person listens to the other, continuing their own thoughts aloud. The priest compares the peacock's tail's sudden appearance to the Second Coming of the Lord, following which Mrs. McIntyre, speaking of the Displaced Person, says, "'He didn't have to come in the first place.'" She chooses not to find any use for Christ in her life. Because Mrs. McIntyre decides to remain self-sufficient rather than rely on the mercy of Christ to save her, she is ultimately destroyed. After her fall the priest continues to visit her, but the primary concern of his visits is the peacock, just as Christ remains his central concern. Though she rejects Christ and his mercy along with the Poles whose thrift, energy, and unconcern for racial distinctions make them undesirable characters, as displaced strangers to her world, Mrs. McIntyre ultimately finds that she is the one who is a displaced stranger. The Dispalced People she has always excluded ultimately exclude her from their religious sacraments, and thus Christ, too, seems to leave her.
This idea is common to all of the short stories in which the main characters reject salvation in favor of pride in their own ability, and choose to ignore the facts of their existence. Ultimately, it is what they choose to ignore that overcomes them.
Flannery O'Connor's comments on the need for religion provide the foundation of these stories, which she conveys through descriptions of the fate of those who reject salvation.

O'Conner writes these short stories in a time of her life where she is faced with lupus, and her stories often contain themes of judgments of society and salvation. One of the techniques I enjoyed the most is the real-life setting O'Connor applies to each story. She creates a southern environment from the start of each of her stories with a display of culture and language that that make you feel as if you were "a fly on the wall" as the stories are told. The realistic setting put's O'Connor and her fiction in a position to pass judgments on society with credibility. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is a great example of this judgment in the dialogue between the Grandmother and the Misfit. One of these aspects is that everything is not as clear as it seems. O'Connor masterfully uses devices such as imagery to convey her themes subconsciously: "'Ain't a cloud in the sky,' he remarked, looking up at it. 'Don't see no sun but don't see no cloud neither...'" In this case, she continues this idea of cloudiness as the Grandmother and the Misfit discuss argue salvation with the Misfit appearing to have a better understanding of it than the Church-going Grandmother. Again, everything is not as clear as it seems.
Another story that follows the indirect theme pattern is "The Life You Save May Be Your Own." Again O'Connor takes us into the lives of a Mother, innocent girl, and a wanderer. The mother and the wanderer are both guilty of a society driven superficiality hiding their true feelings. O'Connor convey's this uniquely for each of them: with the wanderer, it is with imagery such as "Mr. Shiftlet's smile stretched like a weary snake waking up by a fire;" with the mother it is with her speech, and how Mr. Shiftlet reacts to her speech. I enjoyed this particular technique of illuminating the character's sincere feelings.
Overall, O'Connor paints a fairly vivid picture with her short stories of what life could have been like in the bible-belt south. The action is slow moving, but the reading raises insights about society, which, when combined with O'Connor's realism, can keep the plots flowing.

O’Connor is very smart, very mean, and very funny. Comic stories with a stinger in each one. She once said she needed to surprise herself while writing her stories, otherwise how could she surprise her reader? Well she does. Stories of good and evil, arrogance and faith, set in the post-WWII American South.

O'Connor is the master, and A GOOD MAN IS HARD TO FIND is her short story masterpiece. Every word counts. Every word drives to the end of laying bare the pretensions of modern man. Every word pushes to see that God and God alone is one's good, even if that push is through violent indirection. If you have to read one fiction writer in the 20th century, O'Connor gets my vote.

This collection of short stories by Flannery O'Connor reveal some reality in Southern life. Each of the short stories details an event or portion of a persons life, and how strange circumstances changed everything. Each of the stories are unsatisfying to the average reader out to read a book with a happy ending. The stories don't end like a fairy tale with all the problems of the world being reconciled, but they end to make the reader think about the situation that occured. They are stories of real life, ending unexpectedly, or even without an end at all. Each story the main character has to reflect on themselves, and make choices dealing with trust, or pride. The stories do not tell of what would happen, but what COULD happen. This is what makes A Good Man Is Hard To Find, and other stories memorable and distinct from all other short stories. Overall, I think this is a good book to read, if you are looking for something different and thought provoking--this is only for an active reader.

The stories contained in this book are some of the most powerful, strange, wonderful, inspiring, discouraging, and angering in existence, and all at the same time. This stories reveal the one and only Flannery O'Conner and her unique approach to stories. The stories in this book focus on the deep questions of the 1950's South, portraying people as they are, in all there grotesque evil. If you read these stories, prepare for some deep reflection and soul searching. These stories are absolutely entertaining, thought provoking and shocking.

The common theme in these unconnected short stories is that some terrible happens to the main character, right at the end of the story. Sounds like a bummer, but it's so well done that it kept me coming back for more, like "Breaking Bad" or "House of Cards" on Netflix.

Many praise Flannery O' Connor's work for her use of religious symbolism and often violent depictions of life.

While these elements are definitely present in "A Good Man is Hard to Find," I also took notice of the subtle foreshadowing O'Connor used with her words; specifically in colors, names and
phrases

FULL REVIEW:

[...]

If you every had any thoughts on what the South was like pre 1964, then this certainly is the book for you. Ms O'Connor packs us in and takes us for a long journey into the South. What do we see along the way? Greed, ignorance, hatred under the guise of religion, and even cold bloodied murder. None of the stories come off as preachy, nor are the characters people that we would be drawn to or run from. They are in fact versions of people that we have know in our lives and see every day.
What we see is a glimpse of their core what motivates them. The stories show us that we are a products of our enviornment and the risks of being consumed by it.

Flannery O'Conner's ten short stories each offer a unique perspective on southern life during the mid Twentieth Century. Her strong Catholic beliefs are obvious through the reoccurring theme of being saved by grace. Whether she shares this idea through a grandmother reaching out to the murderer of her child, or a new groom trying to help a young runaway, the concept of charity is continually displayed.
However, don't be deceived by the religious themes. This book is not gently written. Many of the stories have violent or disturbing endings that are vital to the understanding of the story. The violence would probably distract a young audience and shield them from the deeper meaning O'Conner tries to convey. Her message would be completely misunderstood.
At first, O'Conner's seriousness took me off guard. Only in a second review did I realize that the stories are excellent works to analyze, and I began to really enjoy them.

I first discovered O'Conner's short fiction in college. Her vivid prose paints in harsh, metallic hues. O'Conner stories, and her characters, will not leave you. If you read for the joy of well crafted, perfectly chosen words and tight, surprising narrative, she will thrill you beyond measure.
Be forwarned, however, that she writes with an axe to grind. A Catholic mystic, her tales are about salvation; she renounces what we would now call secular humanism. Her religious beliefs are not blatant in her work, but it will begin to beat on you if you read enough.
Despite my personal distaste for her particular orthodoxy, I will forever be in love with her writing. Writers like O'Conner are all too rare, whatever their personal beliefs.

I have always loved Flannery O'Connor for her realistic, very interesting characters and unique descriptions of nature. Her stories never beat around the bush or give you a predictable fairy tale ending. Her fine-tuned story-telling and unbelievably sympathetic characters stick in your head for years. I often prefer novels to short stories, but hers I always recommend.

Excellent. I read A Good Man is Hard to Find back in high school and have been disturbed by it ever since. O'Connor certainly had a knack for describing her characters and making a perfectly innocent sound story take a turn for the macabre with the reader barely noticing the change.

I decided to give Ms. O'Connor another chance. She uses the n- word frequently, but I attempted to view her as a product of her times. It did no good. She is a sadist. She has only contempt for her characters. She makes you want to scream with her abject nihilism. I bet she was sorry ultimately!

I would never have guessed that the author was female. The most depressing and violent stories of men I've ever read. Not a good one to found (thus the title!) until the last story, and what do they do to this good man? Why, KILL him, what the ?

When I read the first story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find," in Flannery O'Conner's book of short stories, I came away confused, dissatisfied, and alarmed. How could a story that ends with the heartless murder of an entire family be a good short story? Then, as I continued reading the other short stories in the book, I realized that the purpose of these stories was different from the traditional purpose of many other books that I have read. I found that O'Conner was not simply telling a story to entertain her audience and thrill them with a "happy ending" but she was making a commentary on life as she saw it. In "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" O'Conner is stating just what the title states; that these days, a good person is hard to find. This theme of good people is present in several of the other short stories in this book, particularly in "Good Country People." I noticed other themes that were present in many of the stories that relate to her own life; the presence of a somewhat uncaring or dysfunctional family or parent, the main characters having some illness or sickness (or missing body-part), and the characters fascination with changing their real name to some other name. These themes provide an insightful glimpse into O'Conner's life and her struggle with sickness.
Do not read this book with traditional expectations of literature, but read it as an inward look into the life of Flannery O'Conner. If it is read this way, than the reader will not only come away mildly entertained, but with a strong connection to the author.

A wonderful collection of short stories by one of the best American writers of the twentieth century. Her stories are great in themselves, but if you are interested in really understanding O'Connor's stories, you need to understand O'Connor - reading Habit of Being and Mystery & Manners is a good place to start. Also, don't underestimate the influence her Catholic faith has on her writing. In other words, don't fall into the trap of thinking that she's just a "cool Southern writer with biting humor." She writes to throw your world off balance.

My expectations were high but what I found was a literary collection of Jerry Springer Show people behaving badly. Every story is a sad trip to a bad end with foreshadowing so obvious that you know what is going to happen by the time you are less than half way through. I enjoyed her descriptions of sky, sun, clouds, and woods, but not people: way, way too much of the N word and many characters that are beneath contempt, to be charitable. If you enjoy the Springer Show, check it out.

Each of these stories will take your breath away and leave you something to think about. O'Connor is a master at distracting the reader with humor so that the point of the story can almost be subverted to it. In the title story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the change in tone is as startling as a slap on the face. So beware! My favorite stories are "The River" and "Temple of the Holy Ghost." The protagonists in both are children, and O'Connor delves into the way they interpret the world (and beyond) in a most surprising manner. It will knock your socks off!

As I first started this book, I was a little confused. Luckily I tried to read the stories by attempting to read deeper into what the author really meant, or by what the author was trying to convey. I think that O'Connor defiantly uses a lot of symbolism, and tries to convey a message that is not seen on the surface. If you simply read this book on a superficial level you will probably not like it, but if you read it to find the deeper meaning, I think that you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Each of these stories will take your breath away and leave you something to think about. O'Connor is a master at distracting the reader with humor so that the point of the story can almost be subverted to it. In the title story, "A Good Man is Hard to Find" the change in tone is as startling as a slap on the face. So beware! My favorite stories are "The River" and "Temple of the Holy Ghost." The protagonists in both are children, and O'Connor delves into the way they interpret the world (and beyond) in a most surprising manner. It will knock your socks off!

As I first started this book, I was a little confused. Luckily I tried to read the stories by attempting to read deeper into what the author really meant, or by what the author was trying to convey. I think that O'Connor defiantly uses a lot of symbolism, and tries to convey a message that is not seen on the surface. If you simply read this book on a superficial level you will probably not like it, but if you read it to find the deeper meaning, I think that you will thoroughly enjoy it.

Don't read that other review...it will ruin the whole point of the book. Without giving anything away, I will just say that this is an amazing book, and it stirred several emotions....and I can't say more without giving it away....so I will just recommend you read it! Well written, great, great book! Takes no time to read!

This is not a story to read before trying to sleep, the images that O'Connor creates engage the mind hours after you have finished the last story. the reader wonders: what the heck is her point? How do her characters come to their "moment of grace?" How are these seemingly grotesque figures connected to reality? The reader who only looks for a good story will be greately disappointed with O'Connor's works. Only those with an eye for the deeper aspects of love, nature, grace and faith will truly appreciate O'Connor's tales. Note to all, however, they are very disturbing, do not read to children!

Just had the pleasure of reading “A Good Man is Hard to Find.” Wow! What a great piece of literature; honestly I have spent an entire day trying to decipher the final sequence. This story is entertaining, well thought out, and deliberate.

My first encounter with Flannery. Interesting reading. A little dark but thought provoking. It seems as if the Kindle version has some misprints through digitizing. I cannot believe simple words were misspelled by the author

There can be no doubt that Flannery O'Connor is at least the best *American* writer of this century. Each of these stories is a carefully crafted masterpiece, making A Good Man a perfect introduction to O'Connor's fiction. When God is in search of man, you never know when redeeming grace may strike.

For aspiring female writers, O'Connor is a prime example to follow. Her strong surrealist style is a great example of fine literature. A Good Man is Hard to Find (and other stories) is an excellent collection, which I would highly recommend.

This was required reading either back in college and is a collection of short stories populated with characters from the pre-Civil Rights south, when the "n" word was common usage. Ms. O'Connor deftly provides her characters with picturable features and dialog commensurate with those attributes. Yet, I find it hard to recommend the book...maybe it's my own bias of short stories, that they're just that...short.

i have repeatedly heard how Flannery O'Connor is a great southern writer & her story A good man is hard to Find is one of the best southern short stories out there. Sorry--I did not see any of this. I read 5 of the stories & quit. The characters were mean & hateful, shallow, selfish & thoroughly unlikable, the stories rushed to the ending. Most of what she wrote seemed as contemptuous of southerners as Taylor Caldwell's stories.

Flannery O'Connor has been hailed as a great short story writer and a great Catholic writer. While it's challenging to discern her Catholicism - at least from this collection - it's exceedingly easy to spot her use of racist language. Was she putting this language in the mouths of obviously small, ignorant people, a la Norman Lear and Archie Bunker, to teach lessons against racism? I certainly do not know enough to say.

As reported by J. Bottum in the October 2000 Crisis Magazine, "the bishop of Lafayette, Louisiana, banned the racist texts of Flannery O'Connor from the schools in his diocese....A woman known in her own day for her anti-racism now placed on the forbidden list on the grounds of racism." While O'Connor was hopefully not a racist, the bishop's removal of these works strikes me as having been wise, indeed.