Customer Reviews

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories

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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.

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.

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, the only O'Connor available for the Kindle, ought to be a premium production. Instead, it is riddled with scanning errors that make it obvious the publisher treats their Kindle products as second-class. I know O'Connor was a weak speller, but this is ridiculous: "The Life You Save May Be Tour Own"? That one is egregious because it appears in a title, but it's typical of something even a half-awake proofreader would have noticed. In addition, the Table of Contents does not link to the stories, so I hope you enjoy making your own with bookmarks. This is the sort of effort I associate with free ebooks...in fact, many of those are prepared with a modicum of pride. It's a disrespect to O'Connor's stories and to her readers, present and future. All purchasers of this edition deserve a free upgrade from the publisher, once they have finally gotten around to finish this edition.

They are misfits, wanderers, and souls searching for faith and absolution. Many of them are, to one extent or another, hypocrites; others are almost unbelievably naive. All of them are Southerners - and yet, even the most outlandish among Flannery O'Connor's protagonists come across as entirely believable, complex characters whom, regardless of location, you might expect to come across in your own travels, too; and there is no telling how such an encounter would turn out.

Of course, you would hope it does not prove quite as disastrous as the title story's chance meeting of a family taking a wrong turn (on the road as much as figuratively) and the self-proclaimed Misfit haunting that particular area of Georgia; which culminates in a bizarre conversation, the failure of communication underneath which only adds to the reader's growing feeling of helplessness in view of impending doom. And such a sense of irreversible destiny pervades many a story in this collection; yet, while as in O'Connor's writing in general, her and her protagonists' Catholic faith plays a dominant role in the course of the events, that course is not so much brought about by the hand of God as by the characters' own acts, decisions, judgments and prejudices.

Freakish as they are, O'Connor's (anti-)heroes are meant to be prophets, messengers of a long forgotten responsibility, as she explained in her 1963 essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South:" their prophecy is "a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up." Often, she uses names, titles and items of every day life and imbues them with a new meaning in the context of her stories; this collection's title story, for example, is named for a blues song popularized by Bessie Smith in the late 1920s, and a cautionary road sign commonly seen in the 1950s ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own") becomes the title and motto of a story about a wanderer's encounter with a mother and her handicapped daughter who take him in, only to use that purported charity to their own advantage - at the end of which, predictably, nobody is the better off. Indeed, the endings of O'Connor's stories are as far from your standard happy ending as you can imagine; and while you cannot help but develop, early on, a premonition of doom, most of the time the precise nature of that doom is anything but predictable.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories" was Flannery O'Connor's first published collection of short stories; yet, by the time these stories appeared (nine of the ten were published in various magazines between 1953 and 1955 before their inclusion in this 1955 collection) she was already an accomplished writer, with not only a novel under her belt ("Wise Blood," 1952) but also, and significantly, a master's thesis likewise consisting of a collection of short stories, entitled "The Geranium and Other Stories" (1947; first published as a collection in 1971's National Book Award winning "The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor," although several of those stories had likewise been published individually before). Two of the stories included in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" count among O'Connor's six winners of the O'Henry Award for Short Fiction ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own" and "The Circle in the Fire," again an exploration of insincerity, half-hearted charity and its exploitation); and the collection as a whole, even more than her first novel, quickly established her as a masterful storyteller, endowed with vision, an unfailing sense for language and a supreme feeling for the use of irony; all of which have long since placed her firmly in the first tier of 20th century American authors.

Flannery O'Connor died, at the age of 39, of lupus, an inflammatory disease which in less severe forms may not be more than an (albeit substantial) nuisance, but which proved fatal in her case as well as that of her father before her. Her literary career, almost the sole focus of her life from the moment that she was diagnosed onwards, was thus cut short way before her time. Yet, to this day her writing holds a unique position in contemporary literature; and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is an excellent place to start exploring her work.

Also recommended:
Eudora Welty : Stories, Essays & Memoir (Library of America, 102)
Eudora Welty : Complete Novels: The Robber Bridegroom, Delta Wedding, The Ponder Heart, Losing Battles, The Optimist's Daughter (Library of America)
Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters (Library of America)
The Heart is a Lonely Hunter/Reflections in a Golden Eye/The Ballad of the Sad Cafe/The Member of the Wedding/The Clock Without Hands (Library of America)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Harper Perennial Modern Classics)
To Kill a Mockingbird (Universal Legacy Series)

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.

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 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.

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.

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!