Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man

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)

In her short lifetime, Flannery Oâ€™Connor became one of the most distinctive American writers of the twentieth century. By birth a native of Georgia and a Roman Catholic, Oâ€™Connor depicts, in all its comic and horrendous incongruity, the limits of worldly wisdom and the mysteries of divine grace in the â€œChrist-hauntedâ€ Protestant South. This Library of America collection, the most comprehensive ever published, contains all of her novels and short-story collections, as well as nine other stories, eight of her most important essays, and a selection of 259 witty, spirited, and revealing letters, twenty-one published here for the first time.

Her fiction brilliantly explores the human obsession with seemingly banal things. It might be a new hat or clean hogs or, for Hazel Motes, hero ofÂ Wise BloodÂ (1952), an automobile. â€œNobody with a good car needs to be justified,â€ Hazel assures himself while using its hood for a pulpit to preach his â€œChurch Without Christ.â€ As in Oâ€™Connorâ€™s subsequent work, the characters in this novel are driven to violence, even murder, and their strong vernacular endows them with the discomforting reality of next-door neighbors. â€œIn order to recognize a freak,â€ she remarks in one of her essays, â€œyou have to have a conception of the whole man.â€

In the title story of her first, dazzling collection of stories,Â A Good Man Is Hard to FindÂ (1955), the old grandmother discovers the comic irrelevance of good manners when she and her family meet up with the sinister Misfit, who claims there is â€œno pleasure but meanness.â€ The terror of urban dislocation in â€œThe Artificial Nigger,â€ the bizarre baptism in â€œThe River,â€ or one-legged Hulga Hopewellâ€™s encounter with a Bible salesman in â€œGood Country Peopleâ€â€”these startling events give readers the uneasy sense of mysteries about to be revealed.

Her second novel,Â The Violent Bear It AwayÂ (1960), casts the shadow of the Old Testament across a landscape of backwoods shacks, modern towns, and empty highways. Caught between the prophetic fury of his great-uncle and the unrelenting rationalism of his uncle, fourteen-year-old Francis Tarwater undergoes a terrifying trial of faith when he is commanded to baptize his idiot cousin.

The nine stories inÂ Everything That Rises Must ConvergeÂ (1965) show Oâ€™Connorâ€™s powers at their height. The title story is a terrifying, heart-rending drama of familial and racial misunderstanding. â€œRevelationâ€ and â€œThe Enduring Chillâ€ probe further into conflicts between parental figures and recalcitrant offspring, where as much tension is generated from quiet conversation as from the physical violence of gangsters and fanatics.

LIBRARY OF AMERICAÂ is an independent nonprofit cultural organization founded in 1979 to preserve our nationâ€™s literary heritage by publishing, and keeping permanently in print, Americaâ€™s best and most significant writing. The Library of America series includes more than 300 volumes to date, authoritative editions that average 1,000 pages in length, feature cloth covers, sewn bindings, and ribbon markers, and are printed on premium acid-free paper that will last for centuries.
Country USA
Brand Library of America
Manufacturer Library of America
Binding Hardcover
ItemPartNumber 9780940450370
Color Black
ReleaseDate 1988-09-01
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780940450370

Country	USA
Brand	Library of America
Manufacturer	Library of America
Binding	Hardcover
ItemPartNumber	9780940450370
Color	Black
ReleaseDate	1988-09-01
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780940450370

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)

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