Customer Reviews
A literary voice silence way too early. - By: Themis-Athena, 21 Jul 2003 
Flannery O'Connor did not even live to see her 40th birthday; she died,in 1964, of lupus, the same inflammatory disease which had killed her father when she was a mere teenager & which all too soon began to cripple her as well. A graduate of the Iowa State University's journalism & writing program, she had started to write her first stories, poems & other pieces when she was stillin high school, & had submitted a collection of six short stories entitled "The Geranium" as her master's thesisin university. (Most of the stories containedin that collection were published individuallyin various magazines & anthologies around the time of their inclusionin the thesis; the collection as a whole, however, was first published only posthumouslyin the National Book Award winning "Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor.") Only a few years after having obtained her master's degree, & after a prolonged residence at Yaddo artists' colonyin upstate New York, O'Connor began to spend timein hospitals and,in due course, was diagnosed with lupus. From that moment on, she focused on her writing even more than she had before - & the result were two novels, two short story collections, several stand-alone short stories, essays & other pieces of occasional prose, as well as a barrage of letters. The majority of that work product, including twenty-one previously unpublished letters, is reproducedin this collection publishedin the Library of America series; notably, the fiction part also includes, as one piece, O'Connor's master's thesis, "The Geranium: A Collection of Short Stories."
A native of Georgia, Flannery O'Connor defined herself as much as a Catholic writer as a Southerner; & she commented on the impact that regional influences on the one hand & her religion on the other hand had had on her writingin the 1963 essays "The Catholic Novelistin the Protestant South" & "The Regional Writer." Yet, while religion (and more specifically, Catholicism) certainly plays a big partin her writing, from the "Christian malgre lui," as she herself characterized the hero of her first novel "Wise Blood"in the Author's Note to book's 1962 second edition, to the "odd folks out" & searching souls populating her short stories, & to her frequent biblical references, it would not do her writing justice to limit her to that realm, nor to that of "Southern" fiction. (No matter for which specific dramatic purpose a writer employed a Southern setting, he would still be considered to be writing about the Southin general, & was thus left to get rid off the label of a "Southern writer ... & all the misconceptions that go with it" as best he could, she quippedin her 1960 essay "Some Aspects of the Grotesquein Southern Fiction." Rather, she added three years laterin "The Regional Writer," location matters to an author insofar as any author "operates at a peculiar crossroads where time & place & eternity somehow meet," & it is up to him to find that precise spot & apply it to his writing.) Similarly, while her heroes are certainly not the kind of people you expect to meet on your daily errands (or do you?), it would shortchange them were we to succumb to the temptation of merely defining them as some particularly colorful examples of grotesque fiction. For one thing, "[t]o be able to recognize a freak, you have to have some conception of the whole man," as O'Connor notedin "Some Aspects of the Grotesquein Southern Fiction." More fundamentally, however, she saw her calling - & that of any Southern author treading the same ground as William Faulkner & trying not to have their "mule & wagon stalled on the same track the Dixie Limited is roaring down" - as an attempt to reach below the surface of the human existence to that realm "which is the concern of prophets & poets," & to strike a balance between realism on the one hand & vision, poetry & compassion on the other; to recognize the expectations of his readers without making himself their slave.
Thus, the famously unexpected endings of Flannery O'Connor's narratives are more than merely weird plot twists, the encounter between the grandmother & The Misfitin the title story of her first published short story collection "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" (1955) is the result of a wrong turnin the road as much as that of a series of wrong choices, coincidences & essential miscommunications, & the title story of her second, posthumously published collection of short stories "Everything That Rises Must Converge" (1965) truly does indicate more than a physical proposition & indeed, a situation applicable to the entire world, as O'Connor wrotein a 1961 letter regarding the initial publication of the collection's title storyin New World Writing.
A six-time winner of the O. Henry Award for Short Fiction & winner of the posthumously awarded 1972 National Book Award for her Collected Short Stories,in her short career as a writer Flannery O'Connor left an indelible mark on American literature, far transcending the borders of her native South. We can only speculate what she would have contributed had illness & death not intervened - &in a time when, as O'Connor wrote so propheticallyin "Some Aspects of the Grotesquein Southern Fiction," too many writers abandon vision & instead contend themselves with satisfying their readers' more pedestrian expectations, her contributions would doubtless be invaluable. Alas, we are left with a body of work that fits neatly into this marvelously edited single-volume entryin the "Library of America" series - but the content of this one book alone is worth manifold that of the much ampler output of many a writer of recent years.
Excellent collection - By: , 24 Nov 1999 
A handsome edition of the complete fiction of this marvellous writer, plus several essays & a generous selection of her letters, which are amongst the best of the century - by turns acute, brilliant, catty & self-deprecating. Only doesn't get the extra crown because of the omission of some of her best short pieces on the craft of writing, collected elsewherein Mystery & Manners. But with that book & this one, you'll have most of what you'll ever need by one of the toughest & darkest of American writers.
Flannery O'Connor-Pillar Of Southern Writing - By: , 28 Apr 1999 This is must read for anyone with literary interest. O'Connor's grotesque style grabs the reader & transports him or her into a version of the south that is all to true. Excellent author.
A great artist, a noble soul! - By: , 19 Feb 1999 This is perhaps the most beautiful edition of the collected works of Flannery O'Connor. And it contains not only her incomparable stories--with those unforgettable characters!--but her magnificent letters. Her stories can both shock & shine. Her letters have made me both laugh & cry. Her stories never grow old--I've read them over many years now & am always finding something new & fresh & am alwaysin awe of her consummate artistry. And her letter reveal, at leastin part, the secret of her art & the power of her stories: they reveal a noble soul. Humble, honest, caring, suffering, & always, a valiant woman of faith. Her lupus stimied her activity; but it deepened her spirit & heart. I am sure those peacocks she loved so much missed her. And they're not fortunate enough, like us, to be able to read her relatively slim, but always enriching, literary legacy. GET THIS BOOK!
