Flannery O'Connor: The complete stories

by Alfred Kazin

soft cover

555 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 1971

About the author

Alfred Kazin (June 5, 1915 – June 5, 1998) was an American writer and literary critic, many of whose writings depicted the immigrant experience in early twentieth century America.

Kazin is regarded as one of "The New York Intellectuals", and like many other members of this group he was born in the Brownsville section of Brooklyn and attended the City College of New York. However, his politics were more moderate than most of the New York intellectuals, many of whom were socialists. He wrote out of a great passion-- or great disgust -- for what he was reading and embedded his opinions in a deep knowledge of history, both literary history and politics and culture. He was a friend of the political theorist Hannah Arendt. In 1996 he was awarded the first Truman Capote Lifetime Achievement Award for literary criticism.

His son is historian and Dissent co-editor Michael Kazin.

(from wikipedia.org)

Reviews

[David Boslaugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

In the rhythm of what I read are books which could be called snippets, perhaps devotionals, maybe even out-of-the-way articles. Among those there is nothing quite like a Flannery O'Connor story. My mom and her family talked like O'Connor's characters and as a result what could be seen as disturbing types of folks are somehow not so distant as they otherwise might be; these portraits are almost comforting. Fiction/non-fiction/O'Connor. Rinse, repeat.