The Burr in the Burbs

I want to commend to you a fabulous new biography of one of my favorite authors Flannery: A Life of Flannery O’Connor.  O’Connor wrote novels, lots of short stories and a barrelful of correspondence.  Her works were published in the 1950s and 1960s.   One of her most powerful and well-known stories is A Good Man is Hard to Find.  At the time of their publication, her works caused some stir.  She was one of those writers who was hard to ignore and hard not to form a strong opinion about.  Most readers either love her or hate her.  She was an enigma to many in her hometown of Milledgeville, GA where her works were considered very unladylike.  She fits into a literary camp often known as Southern Gothic.  Writers like O’Connor skillfully describe human beings in all of their grittiness.  When asked once why Southern writers seem to be so adept at writing about freaks, she said, “because we are still able to recognize one.”  That’s one of my favorites quotes of hers and she is an exceedingly quotable person.  Though she came from a polite and sheltered background, she had a remarkable ability to perceive human corruption.  But why tell about the unpleasantness of human experience?  She explained that “to the hard of hearing, you shout and for the almost-blind, you draw large and startling figures.”  Artists reveal.  Flannery O’Connor felt it was important to uncover human hypocrisy and moral sickness and that is what she strove to do.  Miss O’Connor died in 1964 of lupus, a horrible autoimmune disease.