Southern Gothic fiction is like the Texas Chainsaw Massacre without the chainsaw massacre. Imagine: a van full of Yankees breaks down in front of a slaughterhouse. When the nervous college kids enter the building they don't run into murderous cannibals, but nevertheless have an uneasy encounter. The proprietor is a loud woman who won't stop pestering the kids about whether or not they've read the bible. Her gigantic elder son fixes the car silently, he is mentally disabled and his face is hideous. Her youngest son is twelve and aggressively hits on the girls. There is nothing cute about the boy; despite his age and size he has the menacing air of a sexual predator. Maybe there's a cross-dressing grandpa in the attic, I don't know. That might be a little too much. Anyway, the kids leave unharmed but a cloud hangs over the rest of their trip. That could be a plausible O'Connor story; usually nothing explicit happens but boy is it creepy. ( )

The book I read when I had surgery on my back.

The title story is the best of the collection, in my opinion! The Misfit sure was an unsettling character!
The second story, "The River", was also quite good. After those, I wasn't really a big fan. Lots of strange people, making odd decisions, and almost deliberately doing things wrong just because. I couldn't understand the actions and reactions of the majority of the characters herein, and felt no connection to the worlds that they were inhabitants of. Mostly, I just wondered what was wrong with all of them! To all of the stories credit, they are pretty creepy and odd which kept my uneasiness factoring into my decisions to keep on reading them. A strange collection this was. ( )

An exemplary short story collection that has become a classic. The stories are cinematic, dark, funny, deeply Catholic, violent, grotesque, shocking, and truthful to the bizarre realty of human nature. Sadly, Flannery O'Connor was a product of her times, and her overt racism can't be erased away. She is still one of my favorite writers for the way she paints a scene and for her use humor, and her sly eye. But, reader beware, yes these stories will make you chuckle. But a few will make you mighty uncomfortable too.

Favorites: A Good Man is Hard to Find, Good Country People, The River, and The Temple of the Holy Ghost. ( )

So much flavor and such great characters in perfect short-story-sized dollops. I've not read Ms. O'Connor since high school; I'm looking forward to reading the rest of her stuff. ( )

At first I thought the Catholicism and slight almost allegorical quality would irritate me, but these stories are so good that they didn't. Great dialogue, great story construction, great sense of humor. ( )