Welcome to the Short Classics Book Club! This is a live discussion group held each month on Zoom to discuss the shortest of the greatest books of all time.
Current Selection
Title: A Good Man is Hard to Find | Author: Flannery O’Connor
Author Bio: Flannery O’Connor, March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964 was an American novelist, short story writer and essayist. She wrote two novels and 31 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries.
She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a sardonic Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters, often in violent situations. The unsentimental acceptance or rejection of the limitations or imperfections or differences of these characters (whether attributed to disability, race, crime, religion or sanity) typically underpins the drama.
Her writing reflected her Roman Catholic faith and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics. Her posthumously compiled Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and has been the subject of enduring praise.
Book Description: A Southern gothic short story first published in 1953 by author Flannery O’Connor who, in her own words, described it as "the story of a family of six which, on its way driving to Florida [from Georgia], gets wiped out by an escaped convict who calls himself the Misfit". The story remains the most anthologized and most well-known of all of O'Connor's works.
Study/Discussion Questions:
- Do you think the moment of grace is a moment of grace? Why or why not? How does the story change if it isn't?
- If the grandmother's moment of grace isn't actually a moment of grace, what is it? And how do you interpret The Misfit's reaction to it?
- Thirdly, what are the best ways to resolve conflict?
- Are any of O'Connor's characters sympathetic? Is the grandmother sympathetic? The Misfit?
- Is the story hopeful or cynical? How do you feel at the end?
SDPL Short Classics Book Club