Readers often use these adjectives after reading Flannery O'Connor's stories.

In her day, the horrified reactions from country folks in the small town of Milledgeville where she lived were fairly predictable.

Even her own mother flinched from the gruesomeness of her fiction—and an aunt took to bed for a week after reading O'Connor's first novel.

I wrote a biography of O'Connor called "The Abbess of Andalusia," which explored the intriguing twists and turns in her Catholic journey.

After reading my book, many people told me they were eager to understand how in the world her stories could be seen as Catholic.

They were puzzled by her own admission, "I write the way I do because and only because I am a Catholic."

O'Connor died at age 39 on August 3, 1964, from the effects of lupus, a disease that began stalking her in her twenties.

As we commemorate the 50th anniversary of her death, I hope my remarks might help folks eager to explore her fiction for the first time.

First and foremost, don't get disheartened if you find yourself recoiling from the tales.

You're not alone! After all, the plots feature drunkards, prostitutes, cold-blooded killers—and shocking moments such as self-mutilation, drowning, and suicide.

People are shot, gored by bulls, and run over by tractors.

A man blinds himself and a little boy hangs himself.

Often, upsetting and violent events happen at the very end of the story, which means there is no neat and sunny resolution.

People definitely do not live happily ever after.

Still, I would say her characters are unforgettable: a Bible salesman who runs off with a woman's wooden leg; a stranger who marries a retarded girl and abandons her at a truck stop; an entire family massacred at the roadside by an escaped convict.

And yet, despite the gruesome events, the stories are peppered with moments of hilarity that capture the rural tones and down-home ways of the Deep South. Continue reading

Source

• Lorraine Murray in The Integrated Catholic Life
• Image: Allan Jones s.m.

Lorraine Murray is the author of "The Abbess of Andalusia: Flannery O'Connor's Spiritual Journey."