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Curator Reviews

John Berendt

O’Connor enshrines in each of her characters an unforgettable rendition of a basic human flaw: venality, bigotry, pent-up anger, stupidity, jealousy, greed, even innocence. Her dark humor is funniest when she is laying bare some horrible piece of human nastiness. And the writing! She can evoke more from the particulars of a person’s face than any other writer I know. For example: “His face behind the windshield was sour and froglike; it looked like it had a shout closed up in it, it looked like one of those closet doors in gangster pictures where there is somebody tied to a chair behind it with a towel in his mouth.” (“The Heart of the Park”) “She jumped back and looked as if she were going to swallow her face.” (“The Peeler”)

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Michael Cunningham

I’d have to cut the pages out of The Habit of Being (O’Connor’s collected letters) and sneak them in among the pages of The Complete Stories. She’s the goddess, right? And I’d need both books.

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Lisa Yuskavage

My favorite is “A Country Doctor”. The Id and the Super Ego running amok in a snowstorm. Dilapidated barnyard doors… and other openings into Kafka’s imaginary world, and of the deepest and most conflicted parts of the human mind.

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John Berendt

O’Connor enshrines in each of her characters an unforgettable rendition of a basic human flaw: venality, bigotry, pent-up anger, stupidity, jealousy, greed, even innocence. Her dark humor is funniest when she is laying bare some horrible piece of human nastiness. And the writing! She can evoke more from the particulars of a person’s face than any other writer I know. For example: “His face behind the windshield was sour and froglike; it looked like it had a shout closed up in it, it looked like one of those closet doors in gangster pictures where there is somebody tied to a chair behind it with a towel in his mouth.” (“The Heart of the Park”) “She jumped back and looked as if she were going to swallow her face.” (“The Peeler”)

View John Berendt's Top 10 Favorite Books