Conversations with Flannery O'Connor

by Rosemary M. Magee

Overview

As this collection of interviews shows, Flannery O'Connor's fiction, though bound to a particular time and place, embodies and reveals universal ideas. O'Connor's curiosity about human nature and its various manifestations compelled her to explore mysterious places in the mind and heart. Despite her short life and prolonged illness, O'Connor was interviewed in a variety of times and locations. The circumstances of the interviews did not seem to matter much to O'Connor; her approach and demeanor remained consistent. Her self-knowledge was always apparent, in her confidence in herself, in her enterprise as a writer, and in her beliefs. She could penetrate the surfaces; she could see things in depth. Her perceptions were wide-ranging and insightful. Her interviews, given sparingly but with careful reflection and precision, make a unique contribution to an understanding of her fiction and to the evolving narrative of her short but influential life. Dr. Rosemary M. Magee is Vice President and Secretary of the University at Emory University.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780878052653
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	02/02/1987
Series:	Literary Conversations Series
Pages:	152
Sales rank:	994,319
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.01(d)

About the Author

Rosemary M. Magee is associate dean of Emory College and is editor of Friendship and Sympathy: Communities of Southern Women Writers, published by University Press of Mississippi

Read an Excerpt

Q. What is a Short Story?

O'Connor: This is a hellish question inspired by the devil who tempts textbook publishers. I have been writing stories for fifteen years without a definition of one. The best I can do is tell you what a story is not.

1) It is not a joke.
2) It is not an anecdote.
3) It is not a lyric rhapsody in prose.
4) It is not a case history.
5) It is not a reported incident.

It is none of these things because it has an extra dimension and I think this extra dimension comes about when the writer puts us in the middle of some human action and shows it as it is illuminated and outlined by mystery. In every story there is some minor revelation which, no matter how funny the story may be, gives us a hint of the unknown, of death.