You know Flannery O'Connor, right? Brilliant, strange, southern gothic writer from Georgia? I am still fascinated with her stories---particularly her characters. How she could get into the minds of all these different characters and shape such awesome stories is a perpetual marvel.
She was born March 25, 1925; died of lupus when she was 39.
My favorite of her stories: "A Good Man is Hard to Find"; "Revelation"...so many... "The River" is still one of the most horrifying stories I've ever read. To say anything more than that is to give it away so all I can say is find yourself a copy and read it!
A compelling life theme was her belief that God is discovered in our lives at the point of pain or great violence. I think she related the words somehow---violate, violence---that to wake us out of our complacency God has to sometimes literally violate our lives. This is the crossroads, the point in our lives where we are best able to see or hear God's intention to be with us, to change something so deeply rooted and damaging that it has to be surgically altered---the violence is a means of waking us to the desire to be and pursue something better than our complacency has lulled us into. I think "A Good Man is Hard to Find" speaks to that more than any of her stories.
One bit of fun trivia---apparently a reporter once asked her if she felt universities were doing enough to encourage young writers and she replied she felt they were not doing enough to discourage them. I love that.
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