The Gospel Hidden in Grotesque Company

In 1955, Flannery O'Connor published A Good Man Is Hard to Find, a short story collection that scandalized readers across the American South. Writing from Andalusia, her family's dairy farm outside Milledgeville, Georgia, this devout Catholic filled her pages with characters most churchgoers would cross the street to avoid — serial killers, con artists, self-righteous bigots, and spiritual frauds. Her editors and readers often asked why she wouldn't write about decent, respectable people.…