Flannery O'Connor

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FOC 's writing career began in the mid twentieth century and was interrupted far too soon by her illness and premature death. Her short stories (two volumes) and two novels or novellas spring from an ultimately faith-based vision of human evil and the power of grace, and represent a unique vision of narrow, old-fashioned life in the American South.
  • BirthName: Mary Flannery O'Connor
    Flannery was the last name of a Civil War hero and his wife; the latter was a relation by marriage.
    Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
    15, 19

  • Pseudonym: M. F. O'Connor
    She chose this name to use for her writing at Georgia College; in graduate school in Iowa she dropped the M.
    Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
    121

Milestones

25 March 1925

FOC was born at Savannah, Georgia (a classic Southern city), only child of Regina Lucille (Cline) and Edward Francis O'Connor. They moved to Milledgeville when her father was diagnosed with lupus erythematosus, which struck her too at twenty-five and finally killed her.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
14

6 June 1955

FOC collected a volume of her short stories under the title A Good Man is Hard to Find, which deals, she said, with original sin. British publication followed three weeks later.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
262, 266

3 August 1964

FOC , having been rushed to hospital by ambulance the day before, died very early in the morning of kidney failure brought on by lupus erythematosus.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
368

April 1965

FOC 's second volume of stories, Everything that Rises Must Converge, was her final, posthumous book. It pursues the theme of the action of grace on a character who is not very willing to support it.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
371-2

Biography

Birth and Family

25 March 1925

FOC was born at Savannah, Georgia (a classic Southern city), only child of Regina Lucille (Cline) and Edward Francis O'Connor. They moved to Milledgeville when her father was diagnosed with lupus erythematosus, which struck her too at twenty-five and finally killed her.
Gooch, Brad. Flannery. Little, Brown and Co., 2009.
14

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