As the name suggests, The Complete Stories compiles every short story Flannery O’Connor published. Apart from her two novels, a collection of essays, and personal correspondence, the 31 stories in this volume are the sum total of her literary output, and while her death from lupus at only 39 left us sadly bereft of a lifetime of what would doubtlessly have been phenomenal work, the stories she wrote in her short time as an author still bear more heft and talent than any writer of her generation could possibly boast.
Most of The Complete Stories is a repackaging of her two earlier collections, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything that Rises Must Converge, though there are also some early stories that she chose not to include in her debut collection, works that likely were intended for collection number three, and extracts form her novels, bot hthe two she published and a third, Why do the heathen Rage, which remains only a tantalizing fragment. The excerpts from her other two novels were interesting to read, as they are earlier versions tha tunderwent significant revision before appearing in their final forms. Seeing them in what amounts to draft stage offers a fascinating glimpse into her craft.
I have little to say about the stories except that they are incredible, and that Flannery O’Connor is one of the all time greatest writers of America, if not the world. I think her novel work gets short shrift, but reading or (in most cases) rereading the stories that form the foundation of her legacy, it’s easy to understand why she is revered as a short story writer first. It really was her strongest genre, allowing her to paint vignettes of her native south with startling clarity, rich characters that reach far beyond the limits of the page, and an all-encompassing faith that deepens the meaning of her words without succumbing to ham-fisted preaching.