Flannery O'Connor

August 2nd 2009

Today I heard a lecture by Brad Gooch, the biographer of Flannery O’Connor. In preparation for the talk I read a variety of her short stories, which I first touched on my sophomore year in college in an American Writers survey course - taught by a passionate teacher who seemed to have read everything ever written by an American author, O’Connor made me laugh and wince at the same time. Her fiction helped to tip the balance and have me declare an English major.

I think the first story I read in 1981 was Enoch & the Gorilla. I remembered A Good Man is Hard to Find and Good Country People (how could you not?). Gooch talked about O’Connor pretty much keeping to herself until going to The Iowa Writers Workshop in 1946, but having to write a note of introduction in the presence of the her interviewer because he could not understand her through her thick, southern accent. She wrote tough, funny, lean prose and many of the characters were inspired by friends and acquaintances in her small Georgian hometown. Flannery died of lupus in 1964, age 39, at the height of her powers.

I wonder how many students she helped inspire to become English majors.