50 Fun Facts About Flannery O'Connor

Flannery O'Connor's fiction is the best-known example of which literary style?

She said anything from the South gets called grotesque by Northern readers, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is called realistic.

In which Georgia city was Flannery O'Connor born in 1925?

Her childhood home on Lafayette Square is now a museum.

How many novels did Flannery O'Connor publish in her lifetime?

She wrote 31 short stories, which are the core of her reputation.

Which disease, inherited from her father, killed O'Connor at 39?

She lived twelve years after diagnosis, seven more than doctors expected.

How many acres does O'Connor's Andalusia estate comprise?

Her mother inherited it jointly with her brother; it was a working dairy farm when they moved in.

O'Connor earned her MFA in 1947 from which famous writing program?

She went there initially to study journalism and dropped the name Mary while enrolled.

Why did O'Connor drop her first name, Mary, at Iowa?

From then on she signed herself Flannery O'Connor.

In what year was O'Connor's first novel, Wise Blood, published?

It was stitched together from stories first published in Mademoiselle, Sewanee Review and Partisan Review.

Who is the protagonist of Wise Blood?

A returning veteran, he founds the Church Without Christ and preaches from the hood of an Essex.

In Wise Blood, what does preacher Asa Hawks pretend to be?

He lost his nerve when he tried to blind himself with quicklime and became a con artist instead.

In Wise Blood, what is Enoch Emery's job?

He believes his "wise blood" tells him what to do without any spiritual guidance.

What make of car does the preacher of Wise Blood use as his pulpit?

The dilapidated vehicle serves as his mobile pulpit on street corners.

Who directed the 1979 film of Wise Blood?

Brad Dourif played Hazel Motes; the film premiered at Cannes.

Who played the lead role in the 1979 film Wise Blood?

Harry Dean Stanton played the fake-blind preacher Asa Hawks.

Which escaped convict confronts the family in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

The grandmother recognises him after the family car flips into a ditch.

In "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", the family is driving from Georgia to which state?

The grandmother would rather visit relatives in east Tennessee.

What is the name of the cat the grandmother smuggles along in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

The cat leaps onto Bailey and causes the crash.

Where does the family stop for barbecue in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find"?

Proprietor Red Sammy Butts is billed as "the fat boy with the happy laugh".

The killer says the grandmother would have been a good woman if someone had done what?

It is the story's most quoted line.

"A Good Man Is Hard to Find" first appeared in 1953 in which anthology?

Harcourt published her own collection under that title in 1955.

In "Good Country People", Hulga's artificial leg is stolen by a man selling what?

Manley Pointer's case turns out to hold whiskey, condoms and obscene playing cards.

In "Good Country People", what was Hulga's name before she changed it?

She changed it to annoy her mother, Mrs Hopewell.

In "Good Country People", Hulga holds a doctorate in which subject?

A heart condition keeps her stuck at home with her mother.

In what year was O'Connor's second novel, The Violent Bear It Away, published?

Its hero is fourteen-year-old Francis Tarwater, raised to be a prophet.

In The Violent Bear It Away, what destiny has Francis Tarwater's great-uncle prepared him for?

Old Mason also charged him with baptising his cousin Bishop.

In The Violent Bear It Away, Rayber, the uncle Francis flees to, works as what?

The well-educated Rayber dismisses his own disabled son Bishop as "useless forever".

How many stories are in O'Connor's posthumous 1965 collection Everything That Rises Must Converge?

The title comes from the Jesuit thinker Pierre Teilhard de Chardin.

The title Everything That Rises Must Converge derives from which thinker's work?

The collection gathers all three of her O. Henry Award-winning stories.

Which story in Everything That Rises Must Converge was the only completely new one?

It was a last-minute addition written during her final illness.

O'Connor's story "Judgement Day" was a drastic rewrite of which earlier story?

The original appeared in her Iowa graduate thesis.

Who wrote the introduction to Everything That Rises Must Converge?

The classics translator and his wife Sally had hosted O'Connor in Connecticut in 1949.

O'Connor's Complete Stories won which prize in 1972?

A 2009 online poll named it the best book ever to win that prize.

Which bird did O'Connor raise by the hundred and celebrate in "The King of the Birds"?

She also kept ducks, ostriches, emus and toucans.

At age six, O'Connor appeared in a Pathé newsreel with a chicken that did what?

She called it the high point of her life: "Everything since has been an anticlimax."

In high school, O'Connor sewed a full outfit of clothes for which pet and brought it to model?

The assignment was to sew a Sunday dress for herself.

O'Connor's collected letters, edited by Sally Fitzgerald, were published under what title?

Mystery and Manners collects her essays and lectures instead.

O'Connor's mysterious correspondent known only as "A" was later revealed to be whom?

Emory University unsealed the Atlanta file clerk's letters in 2007 after a 20-year embargo.

What did O'Connor reply when Mary McCarthy called the Eucharist merely symbolic?

She was a devout Catholic who attended Mass daily.

O'Connor wrote over a hundred book reviews for The Bulletin and The Southern Cross, which were what?

A colleague said the range of books she chose showed she was profoundly intellectual.

O'Connor's unfinished novel, published in 2024, is titled what?

Jessica Hooten Wilson assembled it from drafts for Brazos Press.

Who played O'Connor in the 2023 biographical film Wildcat?

The director's daughter also plays characters from the short stories; one scholar counted 500 factual errors.

In Wildcat, which poet describes O'Connor as his most talented student?

The film gives them mutual romantic feelings before he marries Elizabeth Hardwick.

"The Life You Save May Be Your Own" first appeared in 1953 in which journal?

It was the only O'Connor story adapted for film or television in her lifetime.

In "The Life You Save May Be Your Own", what first word does Shiftlet teach young Lucynell?

He then abandons her at a diner on their honeymoon, $17.50 richer.

O'Connor completed Wise Blood at Yaddo, an artists' colony in which state?

It sits in Saratoga Springs; she was there in the summer of 1948.

Before Iowa, O'Connor drew cartoons for the student newspaper where?

It is now Georgia College & State University; she finished a three-year program in sociology and English.

In 2015 the US Postal Service honoured O'Connor in which stamp series?

Some critics said the stamp failed to reflect her character.

The Flannery O'Connor Book Trail linking her two Georgia homes is a series of what?

It connects her two Georgia homes.

In which Milledgeville cemetery is O'Connor buried?

She died at Baldwin County Hospital on August 3, 1964.

Which Iowa workshop director first read and commented on early drafts of Wise Blood?

Lytle, editor of the Sewanee Review, was among the earliest admirers of her fiction.