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Everything That Rises Must Converge

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Everything That Rises Must Converge

Written by: Flannery O’Connor
Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Karen White, Mark Bramhall, Lorna Raver
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About this listen

This collection of nine short stories by Flannery O'Connor was published posthumously in 1965. The flawed characters of each story are fully revealed in apocalyptic moments of conflict and violence that are presented with comic detachment.

The title story is a tragicomedy about social pride, racial bigotry, generational conflict, false liberalism, and filial dependence. The protagonist, Julian Chestny, is hypocritically disdainful of his mother's prejudices, but his smug selfishness is replaced with childish fear when she suffers a fatal stroke after being struck by a black woman she has insulted out of oblivious ignorance rather than malice.

Similarly, “The Comforts of Home” is about an intellectual son with an Oedipus complex. Driven by the voice of his dead father, the son accidentally kills his sentimental mother in an attempt to murder a harlot.

The other stories are “A View of the Woods”, “Parker's Back”, “The Enduring Chill”, “Greenleaf”, “The Lame Shall Enter First”, “Revelation”, and “Judgment Day”.

Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.

©1956 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965; renewed 1993 by the Estate of Mary Flannery O’Connor (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.
Anthologies & Short Stories Classics Fiction Literary Fiction Short Story
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What the critics say

“The current volume of posthumous stories is the work of a master, a writer's writer—but a reader's too—an incomparable craftsman who wrote, let it be said, some of the finest stories in our language." ( Newsweek)
“All in all they comprise the best collection of shorter fiction to have been published in America during the past twenty years.” ( Book Week)
“When I read Flannery O'Connor, I do not think of Hemingway, or Katherine Anne Porter, or Sartre, but rather of someone like Sophocles. What more can you say for a writer? I write her name with honor, for all the truth and all the craft with which she shows man's fall and his dishonor.” (Thomas Merton)

What listeners say about Everything That Rises Must Converge

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Lots to think about

Every story in this collection was strong, with layers of meaning to unfold. O'Connor has such a distinct style. There is nothing vanilla about her work. It is dark and always tinged with violence and she creates the most unlikeable characters. I'm surprised I enjoyed it as much as I did but every story left me very thoughtful.

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Loved this Book

FO’s book was an excellent listen and very thought-provoking. I enjoyed listening to her several & various short stories, of southern gothic style. The narrator’s all performed masterfully & the characters were brought vividly to life.

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great short stories with unpredictable endings

Very much in the tone of Anton Chekov.
Brilliant insights to the sound of racism in general southern society.
I learned a lot....
but mostly I was wonderfully entertained

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