Flannery O'Connor

 

One of my reading goals for 2024 is to try and read one short story collection per week. This week I have been reading Flannery O'Connor's (FOC) A Good Man Is Hard To Find. 

A few random thoughts:

I first read FOC in Reagan's second term. Every five to ten years I return to her work.

I remain fascinated by her stories because of their mysterious nature; there is always something I do not quite understand.

I watched a documentary about FOC in the PBS American Masters series not so long ago. One person interviewed had a line that, I think, captured the religious attitudes in FOC's rural Georgia:

You can lie. You can cheat. You can steal. You can even murder. But you can't not go to church.