Flannery O'Connor Books

At her death in 1964, Flannery O'Connor left a small canon of works that made her one of the most critically acclaimed authors of her time. Author Harold Fickett and photographer Douglass Gilbert have teamed up to produce a work that explores O'Connor's development as a Christian writer.

Fickett does a superb job in giving us a biographical view of her life and a detailed analysis of her works. He does a thorough exploration of her work through a Christian lens. Through his meticulous care, Fickett brings out the symbolism, concept of Grace, redemption and salvation that is found throughout her work. He looks at her life and shows how her religious faith as a Catholic served as the impetus for her work.
O'Connor's mission was for readers to see the grotesque and ugly that we in our fallen state share. The ugliness of our human condition is not the final answer for through her work we are shown how God's grace permeates even the darkest hearts.

Douglas Gilbert's black and white pictures of the south and its relationship to O'Connor's work is a compliment to the text. You can feel the soul of the southerner. You can see the human and natural devastation of man through these moving pictures. The two men have done a splendid job in presenting a critique of O'Connor through a Christian perspective.

My only criticism of the work is that Fickett overstates his case of O'Connor's Christian vision. He sees Christian themes in every detail of her works to the point where you become lost in attempting to focus on the main theme that she is trying to get across.

This is an excellent book for Christian writers and readers who can gain a greater appreciation for O'Connor through the author's analysis and the photographer's pictures. It is also a good work to have in your library for those who have studied O'Connor's works but have failed to consider her Christian perspective.

I ordered this book from Amazon two months ago and have yet to receive it.

Ragen's study, along with works such as Jon Lance Bacon's *Flannery O'Connor and Cold War Culture*, locates the Georgia author within broad patterns of American cultural history. Ragen grants O'Connor's interpretation of her work as an incarnational art. Through a series of clever close reads of *Wise Blood* and short stories such as "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," Ragen shows how O'Connor inscribes her religious meanings on one of postwar America's defining technologies: the car. Ragen looks to O'Connor's personal library, letters, and reading habits to locate her in a mid-century tradition of Catholic pop culture criticism typified by Marshall McLuhan, whose book *The Mechanical Bride* O'Connor much admired. Writing from the perspective of American Studies, Ragen argues that O'Connor focuses on cars to critique the myth of the American Adam, a pervasive American myth typified by those self-made men that populate not only American literature but also the advertisements and products of American consumer culture as well.

With its combination of original research and detailed critical surveys (and very readable prose), Ragen's book will interest not only O'Connor scholars but also students seeking a good review of the field of American Studies in general. You do not need to be an academic to enjoy Ragen's book either; if you are an O'Connor fan, reading Ragen's study will broaden your mind and give you a new appreciation of O'Connor's fiction. This one-of-a-kind study is highly Recommended for all of O'Connor's admirers.

Doug Davis
Gordon College

In 1999 I completed a dissertation on Flannery O'Connor and I found this to be one of about 10 books that were particularly helpful. (I believe that I have read over 50 books on O'Connor). Brian Ragen writes clearly and thoughtfully and sympathetically with O'Connor as an author and O'Connor as a "cradle" Catholic. This is a book for any college graduate as it is blessedly free of the jargon that has swamped the field of literature of late. It is a critical study, and thus demands that the reader follow arguments and have a good knowledge of O'Connor, but for any reader in that category, the book is extremely rewarding. I consider this a sort of "entry-level" critical study, and one that can be read by a non-specialist.

Once you've read O'Connor, this is a good places to enter into the world of O'Connor criticism.

Mother Rocket, Ciresi's first collection of stories, won the Flannery O'Connor award for a reason. This collection wonderfully showcases Ciresi's dark sense of humor, sharp dialogue, and engaging characters. A quick, enjoyable read. I also enjoyed Sometimes I Dream in Italian, Ciresi's other short story collection.

I am a big fan of Rita Ciresi, so I went out of my way to find this one. This was her first literary work, a collection of short stories. It is just plain weird, and darkly sad. Awfully written. I can't imagine how it won the Flannery O'Connor award. Rita Ciresi's other books, especially Pink Slip and Blue Italian are so much better. I've been trying to unload this on ebay for a long time now and no one will buy it from me. Can't say I blame them.

They really should retitle this book. If you're a literary fiction enthusiast and you love well written stories that have no point, this collection is for you.

If, however, you actually expect an ending to go with the set-up well, with this book you're out of luck.

Gary Fincke's Sorry I Worried You won the Flannery O' Connor Award for good reason. If anything, Fincke is a chronicler of everyday life, of burger joints and strip malls, of lives that often go unnoticed in many writers' hands yet exist all around us in present day America. In the tradition of writers like Raymond Carver and Richard Yates, Fincke uses the desperation of the mundane as inspiration. He doesn't rely on cheap tricks. There's no melodrama or experimentation here. Instead, what you get is straightforward realism that's more interested in character than plot. And his prose pops on every page, reflecting his background as a poet. If you're in the market for a collection of technically flawless, unpretentious stories of middle class anxiety, this is the book for you.

I am sure it wonderful book, but it just was to much for my liking at this point in time in my life.