Flannery O'Connor: Collected Works (2021-26)
In her lifetime, Flannery O'Connor published two novels and one short story collection, preparing a second collection for publication before she died. I have reviewed these individually.
There are, however, another five hundred plus pages of material here - longer than any two of her books - and that is what I am covering here.
First up we have "The Geranium and Other Stories", containing her earilest work - this collection of stories, though she did not publish it, was presented as her thesis at Iowa State University for her Master's in Fine Arts. They are indeed early work, and it shows. Three of these stories were reworked later: "The Train" as the first chapter of _Wise Blood_; "The Turkey" as "An Afternoon in the Woods", which appears later in this volume; and "The Geranium", which was her first professional sale. She reworked "The Geranium" several times during her too-short career, at one time trying to publish its then-current version as "An Exile in the East", and finished her final revision on her deathbed in 1964: "Judgement Day", which was the last story in _Everything That Rises Must Converge_.
Probably the strongest story in here is "Wildcat", a story of a old Black (other words are used) man and his community when a wildcat (probably a bobcat, given that O'Connor's stories mostly take place in Georgia) comes and threatens their livestock and, they think, their lives. As the old man reflects on a previous time that this happened, when he was young, a group of younger men go out to find and kill the wildcat. But the wildcat has other plans.
There are three more short stories here. "An Afternoon in the Woods" tells of a boy who runs down a wild turkey; "The Partridge Festival" sets the story of a murderer and his admirers against the backdrop of a small town's Azalea Festival; and "Why Do the Heathen Rage?" is a slight story about the family of a man who has had a paralyzing stroke. (No spoilers here!)
Next up we have eight essays, or, as the table of contents calls them, "Occasional Prose". Though several of these are talks on her position as a writer, the two best are not.
The "Introduction to _A Memoir of Mary Ann_" tells how O'Connor came to edit and market a book by a convent of Dominican nuns, the "Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer", about a small girl who came to them with a face severely disfigured by her cancer and brightened all their lives until her death eight years later. It begins with the story of how the order was founded by the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and ends with a reflection of how the book may "illuminate that join the most diverse lives and that hold us fast in Christ."
"The King of the Birds" is about her lifelong hobby (except for the decade or so she was away from home in Iowa and Connecticut and New York) that began with the fancy chickens that got her into a Pathé newsreel at the age of five and, in maturity, led to her hosting a small horde of peafowl. It is poignant and funny at the same time, which ain't easy to pull off.
The talks are insightful but slight, covering topics like "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" and "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South". (Though she was a lifelong, and devout, Catholic, O'Connor's stories are mostly about Protestants.)
Finally, after the Occasional Prose, there are roughly three hundred fifty pages of letters. The first is O'Connor's attempt to acquire an agent in 1948; the last, sixteen years later, is a note to a friend written days before her death. In between they paint a picture of a woman of her time and place. A modern liberal will find some of them offensive, as O'Connor was a conservative in rural Georgia in the mid-twentieth century. She gathered pen-pals like a flower patch attracts bees, and was very open in these letters for a decided introvert. The letters also detail her struggle witih lupus, decalcifying bones, kidney infections, and more.
I found them fascinating, and very revealing about what she meant her stories to reveal: the action of grace on those unwilling to bear it. For example, both her novels are about people with a real calling from God who desperately try to refuse it, and who fail in the end to do so. Grace to O'Connor generally takes forms that are rarely what we want, but always what we need.
That Mary Flannery O'Connor was a great American writer, her Collected Works leave no doubt. She is not a writer for everyone, but for those receptive to what she does, the effect of reading her is likely to be permanent.
There are, however, another five hundred plus pages of material here - longer than any two of her books - and that is what I am covering here.
First up we have "The Geranium and Other Stories", containing her earilest work - this collection of stories, though she did not publish it, was presented as her thesis at Iowa State University for her Master's in Fine Arts. They are indeed early work, and it shows. Three of these stories were reworked later: "The Train" as the first chapter of _Wise Blood_; "The Turkey" as "An Afternoon in the Woods", which appears later in this volume; and "The Geranium", which was her first professional sale. She reworked "The Geranium" several times during her too-short career, at one time trying to publish its then-current version as "An Exile in the East", and finished her final revision on her deathbed in 1964: "Judgement Day", which was the last story in _Everything That Rises Must Converge_.
Probably the strongest story in here is "Wildcat", a story of a old Black (other words are used) man and his community when a wildcat (probably a bobcat, given that O'Connor's stories mostly take place in Georgia) comes and threatens their livestock and, they think, their lives. As the old man reflects on a previous time that this happened, when he was young, a group of younger men go out to find and kill the wildcat. But the wildcat has other plans.
There are three more short stories here. "An Afternoon in the Woods" tells of a boy who runs down a wild turkey; "The Partridge Festival" sets the story of a murderer and his admirers against the backdrop of a small town's Azalea Festival; and "Why Do the Heathen Rage?" is a slight story about the family of a man who has had a paralyzing stroke. (No spoilers here!)
Next up we have eight essays, or, as the table of contents calls them, "Occasional Prose". Though several of these are talks on her position as a writer, the two best are not.
The "Introduction to _A Memoir of Mary Ann_" tells how O'Connor came to edit and market a book by a convent of Dominican nuns, the "Servants of Relief for Incurable Cancer", about a small girl who came to them with a face severely disfigured by her cancer and brightened all their lives until her death eight years later. It begins with the story of how the order was founded by the daughter of Nathaniel Hawthorne, and ends with a reflection of how the book may "illuminate that join the most diverse lives and that hold us fast in Christ."
"The King of the Birds" is about her lifelong hobby (except for the decade or so she was away from home in Iowa and Connecticut and New York) that began with the fancy chickens that got her into a Pathé newsreel at the age of five and, in maturity, led to her hosting a small horde of peafowl. It is poignant and funny at the same time, which ain't easy to pull off.
The talks are insightful but slight, covering topics like "Some Aspects of the Grotesque in Southern Fiction" and "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South". (Though she was a lifelong, and devout, Catholic, O'Connor's stories are mostly about Protestants.)
Finally, after the Occasional Prose, there are roughly three hundred fifty pages of letters. The first is O'Connor's attempt to acquire an agent in 1948; the last, sixteen years later, is a note to a friend written days before her death. In between they paint a picture of a woman of her time and place. A modern liberal will find some of them offensive, as O'Connor was a conservative in rural Georgia in the mid-twentieth century. She gathered pen-pals like a flower patch attracts bees, and was very open in these letters for a decided introvert. The letters also detail her struggle witih lupus, decalcifying bones, kidney infections, and more.
I found them fascinating, and very revealing about what she meant her stories to reveal: the action of grace on those unwilling to bear it. For example, both her novels are about people with a real calling from God who desperately try to refuse it, and who fail in the end to do so. Grace to O'Connor generally takes forms that are rarely what we want, but always what we need.
That Mary Flannery O'Connor was a great American writer, her Collected Works leave no doubt. She is not a writer for everyone, but for those receptive to what she does, the effect of reading her is likely to be permanent.