Episode 581 || Conquer a Classic Sneak Peek
This week on From the Front Porch, Annie invites you to join our Conquer a Classic book club! It’s not too late. A Year With Flannery is a communal exploration of Georgia author Flannery O’Connor’s short stories (and novels). Listen to learn how to join our From the Front Porch Patreon Conquer a Classic book club (you’ll also find details below).
To purchase the books mentioned in this episode, stop by The Bookshelf in Thomasville, visit our website (search episode 581) or download and shop on The Bookshelf’s official app:
Conquer a Classic 2026 Collection
The Complete Stories by Flannery O’Connor
This bundle includes
The Complete Stories
The Violent Bear it Away
Wise Blood
Mystery & Manners: Occasional Prose
Now is a great time to join the From the Front Porch Patreon community and our Conquer a Classic Book Club. One perk of being a Patreon member is being a part of our super-popular, year-long Conquer a Classic book club! Each year, Annie and Hunter select a classic book and read it with our Patreon community over the course of the year.
Join our Conquer a Classic book club:
Step 1. Join the Patreon here. You’ll unlock bonus episodes of the podcast where Annie and Hunter discuss Flannery’s works, plus discussion forums with other Conquer a Classic book club members.
Step 2. Buy your copy of THE COMPLETE STORIES or your Conquer a Classic bundle here. Your order will include an exclusive reading guide and bookmark.
On Patreon, you can choose from two different tiers to join our Conquer a Classic book club:
For $5/month, you get:
Monthly Conquer a Classic recap episodes with Annie and Hunter for THE COMPLETE STORIES
Monthly Porch Visits on Zoom with Annie
For $20/month, you get:
Monthly Conquer a Classic recap episodes with Annie and Hunter for THE COMPLETE STORIES
Monthly Porch Visits on Zoom with Annie
Quarterly book club conversations about O’Connor’s books: WISE BLOOD, THE VIOLENT BEAR IT AWAY, and MYSTERY AND MANNERS
Biannual movie recap episodes with Annie and Hunter: FLANNERY (2019) and WILDCAT (2023)
From the Front Porch is a weekly podcast production of The Bookshelf, an independent bookstore in South Georgia. You can follow The Bookshelf’s daily happenings on Instagram and Facebook, and all the books from today’s episode can be purchased online through our store website, www.bookshelfthomasville.com.
A full transcript of today’s episode can be found below.
Special thanks to Dylan and his team at Studio D Podcast Production for sound and editing and for our theme music, which sets the perfect warm and friendly tone for our Thursday conversations.
This week, Annie is reading A Guide to Open Water Lifesaving by Virginia Eubanks (out August 11).
If you liked what you heard in today’s episode, tell us by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts. You can also support us on Patreon, where you can access bonus content, monthly live Porch Visits with Annie, our monthly live Patreon Book Club with Bookshelf staffers, Conquer a Classic episodes with Hunter, and more. Just go to patreon.com/fromthefrontporch.
We’re so grateful for you, and we look forward to meeting back here next week.
Transcript:
[00:00:00] Annie: Welcome to From the Front Porch, a conversational podcast about books, small business, and life in the South. [music plays out]
"There were so many subjects to write stories about that Miss Willerton never could think of one. That was always the hardest part of writing a story, she always said. She spent more time thinking of something to write about than she did writing."
Flannery O'Connor, The Complete Stories.
[as music fades out]
I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Book Shelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and this week I'm talking about our 2026 Conquer a Classic series for Patreon. If you're craving more From the Front Porch, or if you want to listen to episodes ad-free, join us on Patreon. This year, listener favorite Hunter McClendon and I are sharing our monthly recaps of our conquering of The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. Episodes air on the last Friday of each month, and it's never too late to start reading or listening, or to cajole friends and family into joining us too.
To join Patreon, just visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch. Three different tiers are available. The $5 a month tier will give you access to our Conquer a Classic episodes, including our full back catalog of episodes, plus our monthly Porch Visit Q&A sessions. The $20 a month tier will give you ad-free episodes of From the Front Porch, plus a deep dive into some of Flannery O'Connor's other works. We hope you'll join us there. Every few episodes, I remind you about our From the Front Porch Patreon program. Patreon exists as a way to support creators, writers, artists in their work, and it's used by a lot of podcasts as a way to generate income. Your monthly Patreon support means I no longer edit and produce From the Front Porch, a gift I am extremely grateful for every month when I sit down to record, and particularly in 2026 as I adjust to motherhood and think about putting another book out into the world.
Patreon enables From the Front Porch to not only exist as a marketing tool for our independent bookstore, but to generate a small amount of profit for our store as well. As you probably already know, through Patreon, friend of the show Hunter McClendon and I are conquering the classic National Book Award-winning The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor together with over hundreds of listeners across the country, releasing recap episodes of our readings every month.
$5 a month patrons receive access to those conversations as well as our monthly Porch Visits, live Q&As where we talk about everything from pop culture to nail polish to what books you should take on your next vacation This brings me to today's episode. The Complete Stories is proving to be a challenging read, though perhaps in a different way from last year's Don Quixote.
It's an adjustment in format, language, and subject matter, which is why I love reading in community with Hunter and with other readers. It is great accountability, and I'd always much rather have difficult conversations and read difficult books than ignore them. I'm truly grateful Patreon provides a platform to us to discuss literary work and their ideas more in depth. My discussions with Hunter and with fellow readers are often the highlight of my month. If you've been on the fence about joining us over on Patreon, I wanted you to know it's not too late. I wanted to give a glimpse into what those bonus episodes are like each month. So listen now as Hunter and I discuss a few of O'Connor's short stories.
If you like what you hear, consider joining us on Patreon at the $5 a month level, or you can read some novels and watch film adaptations along with us at the $20 a month level. Just visit patreon.com/fromthefrontporch, and you'll find information about all of our tiers. Welcome to this bonus episode of From the Front Porch. I'm Annie Jones, owner of The Book Shelf, an independent bookstore in beautiful downtown Thomasville, Georgia, and I am joined by my friend and fellow reader, Hunter McClendon. Hi, Hunter.
[00:04:28] Hunter: Hello.
[00:04:29] Annie: I didn't mix it up today because you know what? We got zero comments about you being Johnny Weir and me being Tara Lipinski, and I'm done trying. I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not being cutesy anymore. It's fine. We'll stick to the basics.
[00:04:42] Hunter: It's like whenever you're trying really hard in a relationship and the other person is just, there.
[00:04:46] Annie: Yeah. That's what I feel. So forget it yeah. I'm not going to be cutesy anymore. We don't need to do that.
[00:04:52] Hunter: Anyway I love how we're, confronting this relationship we have with an audience. We're like, "Listen, we need you to appreciate this"
[00:04:58] Annie: An audience that can't defend themselves. They're not even here. They're probably yelling at their phones "wait, I loved it." Thank you to all of you listeners who are joining us this year on our Conquer a Classic journey. We are in the middle of The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor. This is our third episode. Will be talking about "The Peeler," "The Heart of the Park," and "A Stroke of Good Fortune." If you're reading along with us, you can always tag us in your reading. I'm @anniebjones05, and Hunter is @shelfbyshelf. You can also use the hashtag, Conquer a Classic, and that way we can see how you're doing, how you're feeling, if you like this. We get the sense that a lot of you don't, but we're so glad you're here anyway. How are you feeling about Flannery O'Connor and The Complete Stories and the overall journey we're on together.
[00:05:48] Hunter: Okay, listen, I keep telling people the thing about these first stories is that they are definitely some of her weakest.
[00:05:57] Annie: Yeah, they're her earliest works.
[00:05:58] Hunter: And I went in with the expectation I guess that should've been something that maybe we should let people know. I went in knowing that it was not going to start off amazing, and that I'd have to just appreciate what the beginnings were until we got to the really good stuff.
[00:06:15] Annie: Yeah. Because these stories, correct me if I'm wrong, but these stories are collected in chronological order. And I think you can see that. Now, I liked some of those early stories, but they're certainly not the stories she is known for. And I think you gave really good advice last episode, where you talked about, "Hey, here are the stories to try. Go read one of those, then come back, see if you like her." And I also think we are probably combating a truth of the general reader, which is short stories. What I mean is they're hard to sell. As a bookseller, they are hard to sell. They are not for everybody. You feel like you have to have an MFA or something in order to read them. Because short stories are just a different art form. And I think for a lot of readers, myself included, we're used to reading long-form fiction. Yeah. And so this is a change, and it's a change in format for us. So if you've been reading Conquer a Classic for a really long time... in fact, I did get a comment on Patreon that was like, this is such an adjustment because Lonesome Dove, Don Quixote, they felt like books I really traveled with all year long. This isn't taking as long. It doesn't take a whole month to read three short stories, which totally, I get that. I do think my parents, who are reading along with us, they're doing like a short story every week, which I think would get you to about where maybe that would make it feel more like a year-long project. But I understand. This was a change in format for us. This was something. And there's a reason we hadn't done it before. There's a reason we put off doing it. We knew it was going to be a little bit different. After you read this month's stories, did you feel hyped? Did you feel bored? Did you feel, "Eh, but, good stuff is coming" how did you feel?
[00:07:54] Hunter: So I felt a couple things. One, it's always the relationship to the short story as, basically workshopping a chapter in a novel always feels a little weird to me.
[00:08:08] Annie: Yes.
[00:08:09] Hunter: And coming across that multiple times now, I was kind of like, girl, part of me wants to wrap it up.
[00:08:15] Annie: Yes.
[00:08:16] Hunter: Aside from that, something that was really interesting to me actually is that I don't really think she had a firm grasp on how she eventually constructed a short story until it comes later.
[00:08:31] Annie: Yeah. There is a sense in which, now not all of them, because I do still feel like for me, The Turkey, which we read last month, that's still, I think, a pretty great example of the art form. I might be alone in that. I liked A Stroke of Good Fortune. I think that story is meh, but I remember that story. When we got to this month's reading, this was funny to me, I started reading it and I said, "Wait a minute." And sure enough, A Stroke of Good Fortune was included in the collection A Good Man is Hard to Find, which is the collection I read in college. And so because I immediately was like, "Wait, I know this story. I remember this story. It stuck out to me when I read it in college." So that was my favorite story of this month's readings. I'll also echo your sentiment because for the $20 a month Patreon supporters, we have been reading novels. So meaning we read Wise Blood; for February, we're going to read The Violent Bear It Away for April. So I just read Wise Blood, and if I could turn back time, like Cher said, if I could turn back time, would I have assigned Wise Blood in February? I don't know. I don't know if I would've put that elsewhere, like maybe toward the end of the year after we read the stories. Therefore, I have not enjoyed these stories about Hazel and Enoch because I now have read what they became. I now have figured out where she was trying to go. So to, go back, I really have to put on that thinking cap of, oh, this is first draft. This is workshopping, and we're going to see it again, but whenever I see Enoch's name, I'm a little bit like, "Okay, I'm done with you now."
[00:10:10] Hunter: I don't know if you feel like this, but there are times where I think, okay, going back to short stories aren't for everyone. What I really wanted to add to that is that truly most of these early stories are not a great representation of short stories as a form to me because, someone once said that short stories are a lot like a good joke, which is that there's this feeling of tension as you lead up to the moment of release. And I don't actually know if these stories... there's, some tension and then there's some slack, some tension, then some slack, and then, there's not a lot of, bang for your buck at the end necessarily. They are truly a slice of life. Somebody else said that I think in a comment, like slice of life and I think that's... Yeah.
[00:10:51] Annie: Do you think Stroke of Good Fortune is the closest we've gotten to that kind of... because what I recall Flannery O'Connor was known for was this, visceral twist, surprise, you said, moment of release, this moment when everything building has come to a head. Do you feel A Stroke of Good Fortune as close as we have gotten thus far?
[00:11:13] Hunter: I think so. I do also think, what is the story before that one?
[00:11:16] Annie: Heart of the Park.
[00:11:18] Hunter: Yes. I do think there are moments of that obviously, we already know where that evolves to, but do think that some of that does show some of other ideas she'll explore in other stories later much better. But I think that A Stroke of Good Fortune also... sometimes her titles, I'm like she gets it.
[00:11:38] Annie: Okay. Actually, I'm so glad you said that. What a perfect segue because, so we are going to talk first about The Peeler, and hopefully if you're listening to this you've read them. But if you haven't, what we're alluding to is The Peeler and The Heart of the Park both eventually become chapters in Wise Blood. And if you are a $20 a member Patreon supporter, maybe you're getting that sense of, "Wait a minute, I've read this before." But at least with Heart of the Park, Peeler too, I felt because I had just read Wise Blood, I could see the differences. I could see what she changed and what she left, which I do think is pretty interesting. So The Peeler and The Heart of the Park were published as companion stories in 1949. I'm curious because you did a lot of reading, and I'm sure some research for your National Book Award Substack. What is the history here? And what I mean is the entire plot of Wise Blood swirling around in her head and the stories are helping her get there? Like you said, she's workshopping. Are the names Hazel and Enoch just names that she loves so much that she has to keep bringing them up? Maybe it's like when you're a writer and you have this idea but you can't figure out how to get it out, so you're just like, "I'm going to write this story, and I'm going to write this story, and eventually if I keep writing my way, I'm going to realize what it's supposed to be."
[00:12:54] Hunter: So I have two parts to my answer for this because I did a lot of research, but, there's some stuff that's a little bit vague. But what I was going to say is, one, you will actually see a lot of "short stories," that End up actually just being chapters. That actually happened with Fate and Furies. That happened with History of Wolves, the opening chapter- was originally published as a short story.
[00:13:15] Annie: That's right. And I just finished, now, it wound up being a collection of connected short stories, but This Is Not About Us it's by Allegra Goodman. She published one of those stories in The New Yorker, and then she expounded on it for this whole collection.
[00:13:30] Hunter: Yeah. And so that's one part of this, is that I definitely think that even if she already knew it was going to be a novel, it's very likely that she may have just... okay, also, this was part of her, whatchamacallit?
[00:13:39] Annie: The thesis is done.
[00:13:41] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:13:41] Annie: The first six stories, my understanding is the first six were the thesis. So I think we're done with the thesis.
[00:13:47] Hunter: Okay, so then that means that--
[00:13:48] Annie: But the train was part of the thesis.
[00:13:51] Hunter: Yes.
[00:13:51] Annie: And the train was also a chapter in Wise Blood.
[00:13:55] Hunter: So I do wonder if maybe she already had the idea for the novel, but that she wasn't really sure... because I think a lot about how Joyce Carol Oates, sometimes she'll write a short story because she's trying to figure it out, and then, she just keeps expanding it. But also, Alexander Chee, when he was writing Edinburgh, he said that he basically had all these little scraps of different things that he'd worked on and ended up seeing how they were all- actually connected. And so I do wonder if maybe there were moments that she didn't realize she was writing about the same stuff until she got there.
[00:14:30] Annie: Yeah. I do think Enoch winds up becoming a character that she keeps returning back to on purpose. I think she's got a couple of different characters named Hazel or Haze, and I'm not sure she meant for them to be the same. But I think Enoch is a character she's meaning to go back and play with some more, and spoiler alert, guys, we're getting another Enoch story in the April reading. So I hope you guys like him. I have some feelings. But we get him again in April. Okay. The Peeler is a short story that eventually becomes a chapter in Wise Blood. In this chapter, Haze, who we also see in the train short story, he is following this street preacher. First he stumbles upon this guy who's selling potato peelers. He's selling like a street salesman. And while Haze, Hazel, is watching him and observing him, he sees a street preacher and a young woman. And so he winds up following them, and then Enoch winds up following all of them. And so I'm going to address, because you talked about titles, I want to address Beth's question. Beth says, "I'm really enjoying reading the stories as I have not read anything like this before. I find the titles of her stories very interesting, and I believe the titles are perfect for the story, except for The Peeler. My question is why that title? We quickly move from the scene with the peeler to Enoch, Haze, and the child." So what's your opinion? because you specifically were talking about her titles.
[00:15:56] Hunter: It's so funny because I saw that comment and I was like, oh gosh, that's the one of the few where, listen, I'll be honest, if I don't love one of the stories, I just stopped questioning a lot about that book because I'm like that's not part of my journey.
[00:16:12] Annie: It's almost like when we've talked about reading a book and we're like, "Oh, that's in italics? Oh, that's song lyrics? I don't care."
[00:16:17] Hunter: Yeah. I don't know if I developed an opinion on that one in particular, but do you have thoughts on that?
[00:16:22] Annie: So for me, I didn't mind the Peeler title because I do think Flannery O'Connor is really interested in objects. Yes. So the heart of the park ultimately becomes an object that is grotesque and weird and creepy. The peeler is like this ordinary object, but it is almost the inciting incident. It's what eventually causes the action. So I didn't mind the story The Peeler. And as somebody who had already read Wise Blood, when I saw the title, I was like, "Oh, I know this story." And think about the train. I just think the turkey, I think she pulls an object that's in the story, the geranium. What's going to be the inciting object for the action? Is what think. Sorry, did you just hear the baby crying?
[00:17:04] Hunter: Yes, but it's so good.
[00:17:08] Annie: He hasn't cried all day, but it's bedtime, yeah, that was a baby, everybody. Just recording my podcast. So I was a guest on a podcast recently, and it's a new podcast, and I'm really excited for them, and I'm proud of them, and yet when I got on to record, they were in a studio with, two mics and a sound guy, and I was in this room with these books and this microphone and this Mac computer and this giant ring light, and I was like, "I have been podcasting for 13 years, and I have never gotten to record in a studio." It's fine.
[00:17:42] Hunter: As an aside, does the ring light not stress you out?
[00:17:45] Annie: It's very bright. It doesn't stress me out anymore because honestly this is a dark room, and so I'm kind of like, "Oh, that's nice, it adds some ambiance." And I have it up. I'm not looking right at it. Oh my gosh, if I was looking right at it, I'd be blind. I'd be a short story. I'd be a Flannery O'Connor short story of something about my vanity would make me blind. That would be the story. Okay. Here's what I want to say, because I was thinking about this, and I saw people's comments on the stories this week, and this month and we're going to work our way through some of them. But I wanted to run this by you because I'm with you. Not each of these stories is my favorite. I have about one favorite for every section that we've read so far. But I also wonder if because of the nature of reading together and discussing and dissecting, we're getting bogged down in, okay, what does this story mean? Okay, what is the moral? What is the metaphor? And instead, my suggestion to readers, and you tell me if I'm onto something or not, my suggestion to readers is what if you read lines? Meaning, pay attention to her descriptions. Forget the moral. Forget how weird it is, how random it is, but listen to the lines. And so this month I wanted to point out some of my favorite lines from each story. And maybe if you have some, too, you can share. But some of my favorite lines from The Peeler were, "I thought I was going to be sanctified crazy." Guys, that is good. The joy I got from that line. "He looked like a friendly hound dog with light mange. She had a brick house, but it was Jesus all day long." So he didn't want to live in her house, it was Jesus all day long. "Her hair was so thin it looked like ham gravy trickling over her skull." That is so good. Hunter, that is so good. "He forgot the guilt of the tent for the nameless, unplaced guilt that was in him." Even if you don't like or understand a lick of the rest of the story, surely we can all acknowledge these lines are genius, aren't they?
[00:19:48] Hunter: Yes. A lot of the same lines were the ones that I... Also, it had been a minute since I'd, really... because sometimes I'll read stuff because I'm writing something and so I'm reading for that reason, then other times I'm reading for enjoyment, so I'll really look into a book. And it had been a minute since I'd really taken my time with Wise Blood. This is so dumb, but whenever the whole Wise Blood line came up I was like, "Oh, I see."
[00:20:11] Annie: Did it make you excited?
[00:20:12] Hunter: Yeah. Like, it definitely felt like Where's Waldo for a minute where I was like, "I see it."
[00:20:16] Annie: Yes. It set off a little alarm bell in your head. Speaking of lines, there is a good line on page 70 that I thought we could talk about just a little bit. I think the girl says this to Hazel, if I'm not mistaken. She says, "You don't never laugh. I wouldn't be surprised if you wasn't a real wealthy man." Because Haze he's perpetuating, he's portraying himself as this wealthy man. But the girl points out, " You don't ever laugh." And so only wealthy people laugh. Poor people don't laugh. And I thought that's such insight. The lightness with which wealthy people get to move through the world.
[00:20:52] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:20:53] Annie: I imagine they didn't spend half their day like maybe I did today thinking about taxes and itemizing business expenses line by line. Imagine they have people to do that for them.
[00:21:02] Hunter: When I read that line, all I thought about was-- for anyone who's like wondering what I'm about to get into, I grew up in a dinky trailer that literally had possums crawling through a hole in the floor. And my great-grandma thought that I had a dog because she kept seeing them through her cataracts. Anyway, and Hank my boyfriend comes from a very wealthy family. And he randomly laughs at everything. He's got so much. He's never stressed out. Like it was so funny because at one point he was like, you should do this, you should do that, and I was like, "With what money?" And the fact that he truly was so confused about, like, why would you struggle to buy this? Why would you struggle? And I was like, "Girl, I struggle to buy a Subway sandwich sometimes. Hello?"
[00:21:48] Annie: I think this line I feel like just puts it perfectly without putting too fine a point on it.
[00:21:53] Hunter: Yes.
[00:21:53] Annie: But we all know exactly what she means. I think it's so smart.
[00:21:58] Hunter: Yeah. That's the thing. Sounds derogatory, but I want to be like, as a poor person, but like for poor people it's like there is just this constant anxiety over maybe losing something or maybe just not having... there's just constantly knowing--
[00:22:09] Annie: Scarcity. It's constant scarcity mindset.
[00:22:12] Hunter: I think that anxiety is one of the reasons why everyone's like "Why do you have a chip on your shoulder?"
[00:22:15] Annie: I don't know what I'm going to eat tomorrow. Maybe there's that. Yeah. I think just really the attention Flannery O'Connor gives humanity; that's a detail that only somebody paying close attention I think would pick up on. The other thing I want to talk about is Flannery O'Connor, in my mind, even if you don't know anything about her, she's a Southern writer. You might know that she's a Catholic. And grotesque might be the word that comes to mind. And we haven't gotten a ton of the grotesque. We're getting there. And I wanted to read, and this is troubling, by the way, what I'm about to read out loud is troubling. But there's this story that the girl tells Haze, and I'm going to read it. We've all read it, so we all know that it's grotesque and strange and honestly creepy. That's the whole point. Yeah. But I want to get your take on it. "There ain't nothing for your pain but Jesus," the girl said suddenly. She leaned forward and stuck her arm out with her finger pointed at Haze's shoulder, but he spat down the steps and didn't look at her. "Listen," she said in a louder voice. "This here man and woman killed this little baby. It was her own child, but it was ugly, and she never gave it any love. This child had Jesus, and this woman didn't have nothing but good looks and a man she was living in sin with. She sent the child away, and it come back, and she sent it away again, and it come back again, and every time she sent it away, it come back to where her and this man was living in sin. They strangled it with a silk stocking and hung it up in the chimney. It didn't give her any peace after that, though. Everything she looked at was that child. Jesus made it beautiful to haunt her. She couldn't lie with that man without she saw it, staring through the chimney at her, shining through the brick in the middle of the night. She didn't have nothing but good looks," she said in a loud, fast voice. "That ain't enough, no siree." "My Jesus," Haze said. It's so creepy.
[00:24:04] Hunter: It is so creepy.
[00:24:05] Annie: In a good way.
[00:24:06] Hunter: Yeah. Maybe it's me, but if somebody ever told me that story, I would want to be like, "Can we talk forever?"
[00:24:13] Annie: Listen, and we're not going to do it here today, but I do think even if the whole rest of the story is weird to you, there's a lot to unpack about that one story. And we've acknowledged this on the podcast before, you and I both do come from religious backgrounds. And so when there's a story that talks about Jesus and sin, living in sin and sleeping around we understand where some of that language is coming from. Yeah. She's got these good looks and we know that. We hear people talk like this. We know this, and so maybe that's why the story itself stuck out to me because I do think in this story, and really we get it a lot in Wise Blood as a whole, is this concept of sin and does Haze have anything to repent of? He says no. You don't have to repent of anything if you never call it sin. So that's a lot of the themes of Wise Blood, which I know those themes aren't for everyone. But I think it's interesting that in this one little story she is hinting at those themes that she's going to keep unpacking Over and over again. But also you could just read this and think, "Wow, that's a gross, creepy story."
[00:25:19] Hunter: Which I can tell that I'm mentally ill because whenever the story first started, like, when she first started saying it, I was like, "Ooh, hot person living in sin. Love it."
[00:25:29] Annie: It takes a turn.
[00:25:31] Hunter: Literally I was like, "I’ll live her life, I'll live her life." And then I was like, "Oh, stop. Wait a minute."
[00:25:36] Annie: Yeah. And grotesque is one word that comes to mind, I think, with Flannery a lot, and then the other word is haunting. Haunted. Yes. The Christ haunted South, that kind of phrasing. And so Jesus made it beautiful to haunt her and to taunt her essentially. And it is a weird thing to be in this story about an onion peeler and a traveling preacher. But it's interesting to me that you could almost take that paragraph out. It appears on page 73, you could almost take it out and it would be its own, it could be its own thing.
[00:26:02] Hunter: Yeah. It could be. That's the thing. It's so funny too because I think it also shows her skill at what she'll eventually become so good at in later stories, is really boiling down what you really could turn into a novel, she boils it down into these tiny little jewels. And I think that's actually really special. And once you see her kind of like hone that skill set, it becomes like a marvel to read.
[00:26:26] Annie: Because I think you and I both know, and we've talked about this before what's harder to do, a big epic sweeping novel that's 600 pages or a story in a paragraph? As much as respect as I have for a big sweeping epic, I think the harder thing is a really tight story told in seven sentences or whatever. I think that is harder to do, and she eventually becomes masterful at it. She might not be there yet, but I think you'll see she gets there. Okay, so we go from The Peeler to The Heart of the Park, which, again, like you, I started this book, I started this chapter and I was like, "Oh, Wise Blood." Get it out of your system, Flannery. Write the dang book. But it does grant us that line from the very beginning, "Enoch Emery knew when he woke up that today the person he could show it to was going to come. He knew by his blood. He had wise blood like his daddy." It's so good. Okay, so this is written as a companion piece to The Peeler. It was always intended to be a companion piece to The Peeler. It eventually becomes a chapter in the larger novel that is Wise Blood. Basically, we follow Enoch through the heart of the park, which if you Google around for Heart of the Park, you obviously find links to the story itself. And it was funny, off air we were talking about Iowa, but there is a park in Iowa where the Iowa Writer's Workshop is. And they suspect that is the park she based this story on. Where it's in the middle of town, but it feels you could almost picture Central Park or something like that. It feels like an oasis kind of hidden in the middle of town. And if you Google, you can find this artist who did some photography and video around this short story and around the park itself, which is pretty cool. If you Google I think you'll be able to find it. But anyway, Enoch has this secret that he's been keeping an eye on that's in the middle of this park, and he goes and checks on it every day, and he's been dying to show it to somebody, and he finally realizes he has just the perfect person to show it to, and it is Haze, Hazel, who we have met in previous stories. So I'm going to get to a couple of people's questions. Let's see. First of all, there's a very vivid scene where Enoch is spying on women at the pond, and I almost picture the pond at Hampstead Heath or a swimming hole where women are trying to have a lick of privacy. Yes?
[00:28:37] Hunter: I was going to say, did you ever read or see Little Children?
[00:28:40] Annie: No. The play?
[00:28:42] Hunter: No. So the movie has Kate Winslet and Patrick Wilson.
[00:28:45] Annie: Okay.
[00:28:45] Hunter: Okay. So it's about this pedophile who moves into the neighborhood, but all these parents are having affairs, all this sort of stuff.
[00:28:51] Annie: Okay.
[00:28:52] Hunter: But there's a scene where the pedophile goes to the pool, but Kate Winslet is these two things are not connected in this way, and it's also not really connected to the story, but in that same scene that he goes to the pool, Patrick Wilson, who is not with Kate Winslet, but they have an affair but he's admiring her, and he's just ogling at her, and the camera is leering at her too. Yeah. And that was exactly what I ended up picturing, so I just basically pictured Kate Winslet in the story.
[00:29:17] Annie: Because the way Flannery O'Connor talks about this, it is so creepy and gross where Enoch hides in the bushes, and he spies on women and their kids while they're swimming. And so Catherine, one of our listeners, she commented, "The women, the zoo animals, the museum exhibit, all those lives presented as just existing for the pleasure, gaze, ridicule of Enoch. There was one woman who came every Monday who wore a bathing suit that was split on each hip. I wrote in the margins, 'I am so tired of this.' Men thinking that women exist for whatever that particular man needs her to be. Women, not represented here, but it is encountered everywhere, making choices all of the time, knowingly and unknowingly, all based on the ideals, wants, desires of men. Reading that sentence in this story really crystallized something I knew intellectually into something I now know deep down in my bones." And it's so true because the women in this story aren't doing anything for the gaze of men. They're sunbathing, they're with their kids, they're not paying any attention, but little do they know there's a man who's watching their every move, who's paying attention. Flannery O'Connor, her descriptions that she uses a woman takes the straps off her bathing suit so that she can tan. And we've all been to the pool, we've all been to the beach, we know what that looks like. And so the way that Enoch makes objects out of everyone is so gross in a different way than maybe the other grossness we've read about before. Okay, then there is another comment, let me see, from Nikki. Nikki said, "The Heart of the Park seemed like a kind of perverse odyssey, with Enoch watching the sunbathers, visiting the Frosty Bottle for ice cream, then passing through the maze of animals before he eventually gets to the heart of the park, which is this shrunken creature. And couldn't you picture it?
[00:30:59] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:30:59] Annie: Have you been to the Mütter Museum in Philadelphia?
[00:31:03] Hunter: No.
[00:31:04] Annie: It's a medical museum. A friend recommended it. Jordan and I went a few years ago. It's the weirdest thing I've ever this is gross, but they have lots of bodies and stuff like that. Cadavers and things like that. Anyway, that's what this reminded me of. For sure, the shrunken creature could have been at the Mütter Museum. So he goes through this, like some kind of ritual, and he does. I think that's what's so interesting. It's clearly a pattern that Enoch has done day after day. But in the end, it's just empty and absurd rather than meaningful or life-changing in the way that he expects. Enoch seems like the reverse of the street preachers. He's trying to treat the absurd as something sacred, and it doesn't work. I thought the imagery at the end of the story was just incredible. "Enoch is faced with Hazel's wrath over not having the address for the blind man. Hazel raises a stone to throw at him. Enoch smiles, closes his eyes, and when he opens them, there's blood from a blow to his forehead. And that whole last paragraph is just such good stuff. I feel like the drop of blood on the ground, hearing his blood beating, his secret blood in the center of the city. That all must be significant, but how?"
[00:32:00] Hunter: Do you know what's funny? I think I might have said this to you, but did you read-- what is her essay collection?
[00:32:08] Annie: Mysteries and Manors
[00:32:08] Hunter: Yes. Have you read any of that before?
[00:32:10] Annie: Yes.
[00:32:11] Hunter: Okay. because she talks about how if you go into a story having all these ideas about like what the imagery is and everything It's already dead in the water basically.
[00:32:18] Annie: Which is why last episode when you and I were talking about the assumption, that the story about the writer was autobiographical. Listen, it may be. I don't know. That's up for interpretation. But I do think she would hate us. I think there is some ways in which she's just telling a story. So I do agree that last paragraph is so good. I also just think it's a callback to the top of the story, where he's talking about the Wise Blood that he has like his daddy. I just think it's all coming back. When I got to that paragraph, that's what I thought. I don't know. You could probably read into it and wonder if it's about communion or something. But to me it's just Wise Blood.
[00:32:53] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:32:53] Annie: Nikki also said, though, and I think this is true, "I think this story could easily have been made into a David Lynch film. It feels surreal."
[00:32:59] Hunter: That is actually really... Yeah.
[00:33:01] Annie: It's so good.
[00:33:02] Hunter: That's one thing where sometimes I'll read a short story from like an older writer or something, or I'll read something that's been around a while, and then I'll think about how this this dead author and this dead director could have made magic.
[00:33:14] Annie: Yes. Totally. So Susan also said, "I finished The Heart of the Park, and I don't understand the significance of the woman with the two kids." So we talk about the woman who's at the pool with the two kids, then she winds up coming to the museum that's in the middle of the park. She sees the shrunken body when Enoch really only wanted to show it to Haze. So why do they end up where Haze and Enoch are at the end? Does Haze know them? I'm feeling stupid with this story." Okay, but I do want to say that Susan followed up that comment by saying, "However, one paragraph in The Heart of the Park caught my attention. On page 84 in the version from The Bookshelf it says, "His heart was moving so fast it was like one of those motorcycles at fairs that the fellow drives around the walls of the pit." And Susan goes on to talk about how she actually saw those one time at a county fair, and she said it was so wild to see in person, and then she could viscerally feel that sentence after reading this line. And so here's what I want to tell Susan, and I think you'll agree with me. I think that's the point. The woman and two kids are just there. In Wise Blood they don't become any more significant. It's happens to be... And maybe there's something to the fact that Enoch was spying on the woman and her kids, and now the woman and her kids get to spy on what Enoch is doing. Maybe there's something there, but generally I think they're just seen to be these outliers who aren't supposed to get to see what Enoch is showing, but they're there anyway. But I think Susan's point about how viscerally she felt the motorcyclist, I think that's the power of Flannery O'Connor's writing. I think we're getting sometimes bogged down in what each thing means and what this person represents, and I think that's fair because I do think there are some points in which she does mean for us to take a deeper meaning. But I think sometimes it's just her writing. Sometimes I think it's just, "Oh, this is a really good story. This is a really good line. This is a really good word, a good descriptor, a good sentence."
[00:35:05] Hunter: I think that when people are writing their early stories, something they're trying to figure out is I genuinely think that most writers feel like they already have this inherent ability to tell stories, and so they're not always as focused on that. For a lot of writers I've talked to are more focused on creating an atmosphere or character something. And I think that for Flannery, it really was trying to figure out how does every aspect of this story contribute to the feeling I want a reader to have when they read it. And so I think that some of these feelings that people get, maybe the story doesn't even really need some of these characters or need something. But because of the feeling you get with having someone there, it's just a little bit uncomfortable enough that you're getting the feeling that she wants you to have.
[00:35:49] Annie: Yeah. And when I think about Hazel or Enoch or the woman with the two kids, I think a lot of readers who are going to read this are going to feel like the random woman with two kids. They're going to just feel like, "What am I bearing witness to here?" They're not going to feel like Hazel or Enoch. They're going to feel like this woman, and so maybe they're supposed to give us somebody to finally understand a little bit maybe. But I loved Susan's comments because I thought they appeared back-to-back in Patreon, and I thought, "Oh, there it is." We're over here trying to analyze this one thing, but then what really struck us and what took Susan right back was this description of the motorcycle. I don't know. I love that because I think that's the point. Did you have any favorite lines in The Heart of the Park?
[00:36:25] Hunter: I think I did, but I don't have my book with me.
[00:36:27] Annie: The only one I picked out was, besides the Wise Blood line, was "The park was the heart of the city. He had come to the city with a knowing in his blood. He had established himself at the heart of it. Every day he looked at the heart of it. Every day. And he was so stunned and awed and overwhelmed that just to think about it made him sweat." This, again, I think we are getting hints at these kind of twists or surprises or unexpected nature of her stories because the fact that eventually we realize that the thing at the heart of the park, the thing that he is keeping so close to his chest is a shrunken body. That's a twist I feel like you really don't see coming unless you've already read Wise Blood. So I do think we're getting closer to what she becomes known for. I think we are inching closer and closer. Okay, so last but not least on tap for this month was A Stroke of Good Fortune. This was eventually included in the A Good Man is Hard to Find collection. So this is about a woman named Ruby She is climbing up the stairs in her apartment, and she's proud of herself for pulling herself up by her bootstraps and becoming a success, unlike her brother Rufus, who's a ne'er-do-well. And then we realize-- and we'll talk about how we get there, but then we come to realize she's pregnant, and this is a surprise to her. It's not really a surprise to anybody else. Maybe it's not even a surprise to the reader, I don't know. But it's very... I laughed out loud. There were multiple points where I laughed out loud at this story. I'm going to start with a question from Rebecca. So Rebecca said, "A review pointed out how Flannery wrote about body parts, and an example is the last paragraph on page 84." And so she's referencing the stuff that you were referencing about Enoch at the park. "The woman was climbing out of the pool, chinning herself up on the side. First her face appeared, long and cadaverous, with a bandage-like bathing cap coming down almost to her eyes and sharp teeth protruding from her mouth. Then she rose on her hands until a large foot and leg came up from behind her and another on the other side, and she was out squatting there, panting." She's painted a perfect picture for us. So that is from Heart of the Park. But I also think she talks a lot about bodies in this story, particularly about Ruby's. She references Ruby like the shape of a funeral urn, which is such a good descriptor. And so Rebecca says, "Why does she write about bodies in this way? She has yet to write an attractive character. Why is that?" It sounds like Rebecca did some Googling, and she said, "A reviewer hypothesized that maybe her illness made her feel ugly." So here's what I want to point out. These stories were written pre her lupus diagnosis. So if you're not familiar, Flannery O'Connor dies at the age of 39 from lupus. But I have always wondered when it comes to writing about bodies, if part of the reason she is writing about them so well is she's had to be so aware of hers? Because I think anybody who deals with chronic illness is so much more aware of their body than anybody who's going through life without a chronic illness. Every day there's a pain, there's an ache, there's a thing that you're having to pay attention to. I started to laugh because I think sometimes you have a sinus infection. When you're sick or not feeling well, like, all of a sudden you can feel your nose. Do you know what I mean? And on a good day, a day where we don't have pollen or sinus infections, we don't pay attention to the fact that we're breathing through our nose, and it's like illness makes us so hyper-aware of what a healthy body is or what a healthy feeling in our body would be like. And so I do wonder, even though this was written pre the diagnosis, I do wonder if she writes so-- to borrow Susan's word-- viscerally about bodies because she's having to constantly pay attention to her own.
[00:40:09] Hunter: Yeah. I do think that in the same way that I've noticed that writers who were dancers tend to write very elegant bodies in their... but also it's really funny. They generate really elegant bodies or like graceful movements in their characters a lot of the time, but they also sometimes describe very specific specifically uncomfortable naughty... And same with cheerleaders too, where you get that gritty underside of that too and I think that the same thing in a similar way. I think that every writer whatever their experience is going to really reflect consciously or whatever, it's going to be in there.
[00:40:44] Annie: Yeah. I definitely think everybody's personal experience somehow comes to light in their writing. So Rebecca, I would tend to think that maybe there is something there. And her descriptions about humans and the different-- I think that's one of the things I love about her, is like when I watch a movie now-- Jordan and I have talked about this a lot. When you watch a movie now, everyone is beautiful. Their face is perfect. They have no lines. Whereas, when I saw Ocean's 11 for the very first time sitting on the front row of the theater, because my friends were late and we had to sit on the front row, you could see every pockmark on Brad Pitt's face.
[00:41:22] Hunter: Yeah
[00:41:22] Annie: Because Brad Pitt was allowed to have pockmarks, and now he wouldn't be. Do you know what I mean? To watch a movie from the '80s, '90s, there's wrinkles, there's- sweat, there's pores, there's zits. And now we don't get any of that. So I would so much rather read an unfiltered descriptor of humans. Because I think bodies are weird and gross and interesting. And the way that she writes about them feels more accurate than like an Instagram filter or a story with only beautiful people.
[00:41:54] Hunter: Do you realize that we would be able to play period characters better, like more accurately than most actors? It's crazy.
[00:42:04] Annie: Yes, it is. Because I think the tide has turned so drastically. A friend and I turned 40 this year, and a friend and I have been talking a lot about how we don't even know what the examples are of aging anymore. I like Nicole Kidman, great, she's really talented. But she looks how she looked 30 years ago. And most of us can't do that. Like I don't know.
[00:42:22] Hunter: I don't know if that's true for you though, because you do look very similar to how you looked when I first met you
[00:42:28] Annie: You've read Orange Is the New Black you'll know it's the hair. Never change it and you'll Look young always. Okay. Nikki said, "Maybe I'm just a weirdo, but these are exactly the kind of stories that I like to hash out. I enjoy grappling with her themes and ideas. By the time I got to A Store Of Good Fortune though, I realized maybe I was trying too hard to always find a moral when really they are more of a mirror. Here we have a character, Ruby, who's in denial about her condition. Her whole trip up the stairs I think is indicative of her struggle against this reality, the reality that she's pregnant." Which I do just want to say, I'm pretty sure I remember this right, but there's 28 stairs. There's all these like little hints that she's pregnant before we get the great reveal. Anyway, "O'Connor seems to like making her characters have to face something," Nikki said. Yeah, and I totally think that's true. She forces her characters into some kind of action, I think.
[00:43:13] Hunter: Yeah. Which is really interesting.
[00:43:15] Annie: Yeah. It is super interesting. Also, Ruby's fear of pregnancy. The line is, "She was not going to have something waiting in her to make her deader. She was not." Listen, I read this story when I was 20 years old, and probably I imprinted on it, it imprinted on me, whatever the phrase is. Because her not wanting to be pregnant and so terrified of it taking her down a metaphorical path she didn't want to go on, a literal path she didn't want to go on. Listen, Ruby, I feel you. I understood Ruby in that moment. My favorite lines. There's this great descriptor, it's not even a line, it's just three words, but it's "sultry subdued wrath." She's talking about collards. Collards, in a voice of sultry subdued wrath. I thought that was so good. And then I want you to save this line for your birthday in a couple years. 34 wasn't old. It wasn't any age at all. I want you to remember that and put that as your Instagram caption. I just think that's really powerful.
[00:44:12] Hunter: I don't know about fall, but nope, four. Never mind. I was going to try to do a 22, but I can't do it. I'm stupid. It's fine.
[00:44:21] Annie: Yeah. You can use this quote in the future. I did take a picture of it and send it to Jordan. "Florida is not a noble state, but it is an important one." And Jordan immediately texted back, and he was like, "That's that Georgian superiority complex," which is accurate.
[00:44:36] Hunter: Very. By the way, I do think that's something that's so funny is that, like... And I remembered that actually the same thing from-- you read the story A Good Man Is Hard To Find.
[00:44:45] Annie: Yeah.
[00:44:46] Hunter: Let me tell you that story to me shows so clearly how superior she thinks Georgia is over Florida, which I think is so funny.
[00:44:57] Annie: You've done this too. But I am from Florida, but I have now lived in Georgia for a pretty long time. There superiority complex is 100% accurate. The turned-down nose at Florida is so dramatic.
[00:45:08] Hunter: Yes.
[00:45:08] Annie: And so dumb. So dumb.
[00:45:10] Hunter: I will say, I didn't realize I was doing it, but somebody literally said to me, "Why do you always feel the need to clarify that it's South Georgia and not north Florida?" I was like, "It just fits my personality better." But there is a part of it that's kind of "Wait, am I just judging?"
[00:45:23] Annie: Are you part of the problem?
[00:45:25] Hunter: I am. I'm part of the problem. It's me. Hi.
[00:45:28] Annie: Okay. We're going to round it out with just a couple questions. The first is from Alicia. Alicia said, "I'm still adjusting to the rhythm of these short stories. I typically read one a day, so I'm done in three days. I miss being in Don Quixote almost daily and really feeling like that book was my companion all year. This book won't feel like that, but I recognize that longtime Conquer a Classic participants might see this as a very welcome change of pace." And then she talks about liking Enoch and Heart of the Park. But I do have a couple of tips for Alicia. The first is what I said at the beginning, which is, I think read a story every week. And then you will feel like you are traveling with this book all year long. The other thing is, at least at the beginning of this year, there was a real popular concept on Instagram, maybe on TikTok too, all about creating a curriculum. And so one of the things I think that- These Flannery O'Connor short stories allow the reader to do is you can really do a deeper look into her other works whether it's reading her novels or reading about her. There are so many great biographies, watching some videos, some professors have posted their videos about her work. So I think it could free you up to maybe read some other things about Flannery O'Connor. There was a year where I read four Jane Austen books, one a quarter. And then I listened to a podcast about Jane Austen. I watched a video about Jane Austen. I watched some movie adaptations. So that's what we're trying to do with the $20 a month Patreon level. But even if you don't want to join the $20 Patreon level, which I get, you can develop your own curriculum. You don't have to follow ours. You can create your own. So I still think there's a way to mimic that Conquer a Classic feeling of we're enmeshed in this text all year long. I think there's still a way to mimic that, maybe even do it a little bit better because you're not bogged down by the readings every month.
[00:47:17] Hunter: I was going to say, I think that a really fun idea would be to find the writers who were so heavily inspired by Flannery O'Connor, people like Karen Russell and Lauren Groff, whose short stories very clearly take a lot of inspiration from her, and being able to appreciate those connections you're able to make that you wouldn't be able to make otherwise. I also, talking about another writer who has very questionable-- not even questionable. She did a bad thing. Alice Munro. Even still, she's dead. You're allowed to read her story. It's fine. But read her story Dimensions. You can find it in The New Yorker. Every time I send it to somebody, they were shocked to find out it was Alice Munro. To me, feels very clearly inspired by a Flannery O'Connor story.
[00:48:04] Annie: I think that's a great idea. Because one of Alicia's other comments was she's learning that Southern Gothic lit might not be for her, and I would argue read a few other Southern Gothic things before you totally write it off.
[00:48:15] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:48:15] Annie: Because Flannery O'Connor is certainly one of the examples, maybe even the main example, but there are a lot of other great Gothic writers out there, Southern writers out there- to investigate and explore.
[00:48:26] Hunter: Karen Russell, if you read her first collection, St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, or even her debut novel Swamplandia!, They're very Southern Gothic or Southern Gothic adjacent and definitely have a lot of similar vibes. But I think that A lot of people will be surprised at how much they like her
[00:48:41] Annie: Yeah. I loved that short story collection. Beth says, "I've enjoyed reading and hearing what everyone thinks the symbolism might be in each story, and I've enjoyed contemplating this. I'm not seeing deep symbolism in each story. They remind me of a Norman Rockwell painting, just absolutely perfect in capturing a moment, a day, an hour in a person's life and the interactions with others during that moment." Kind of like you were talking slice of life stuff.
[00:49:03] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:49:04] Annie: She is able to masterfully create an opportunity for us to glimpse into that person's moment through the dialogue and interaction and thoughts of that person, what it means to be truly human for that person in that moment." And I think I especially got that sense with Ruby in the latter story. But certainly we're seeing it in some other places as well, in The Geranium. So I like that, Beth, and I think that's a good way to go into some of these stories. The good news, everybody, is that for April, yes, you have to read Enoch and the Gorilla. Now listen, I do like that story, but that is another Wise Blood chapter.
[00:49:36] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:49:36] Annie: But then you also get to read A Good Man Is Hard to Find, A Late Encounter with the Enemy, and The Life You Save May Be Your Own, which I recall loving in college. Guys, keep persevering cause things are about to get good, I think.
[00:49:50] Hunter: Yeah. No, I agree. This is kind of where I feel like everything starts to hit its stride.
[00:49:53] Annie: Yes.
[00:49:54] Hunter: Yeah.
[00:49:55] Annie: Which is perfect because it's spring. Like this feels right. We timed this perfectly, you guys.
[00:49:59] Hunter: Let me tell you something. A lot of people actually love Don Quixote, but if you hung on through Bleak House...
[00:50:05] Annie: Yeah. Won't it be wild? Let me tell you what I would not be able to predict. If somebody made it through Bleak House and Don Quixote, and then dipped out during Flannery, that would not have been on my bingo card.
[00:50:15] Hunter: No. Shook, shaken, stirred. I couldn't.
[00:50:19] Annie: Okay. Thank you so much, Hunter, for being here. We will see you in April. Happy reading.
[00:50:24] Hunter: Bye.