Everything That Rises Must Converge

By: Flannery O’Connor

Narrated by: Bronson Pinchot, Karen White, Mark Bramhall, Lorna Raver

This collection of nine short stories by Flannery O'Connor was published posthumously in 1965. The flawed characters of each story are fully revealed in apocalyptic moments of conflict and violence that are presented with comic detachment.

The title story is a tragicomedy about social pride, racial bigotry, generational conflict, false liberalism, and filial dependence. The protagonist, Julian Chestny, is hypocritically disdainful of his mother's prejudices, but his smug selfishness is replaced with childish fear when she suffers a fatal stroke after being struck by a black woman she has insulted out of oblivious ignorance rather than malice.

Similarly, “The Comforts of Home” is about an intellectual son with an Oedipus complex. Driven by the voice of his dead father, the son accidentally kills his sentimental mother in an attempt to murder a harlot.

The other stories are “A View of the Woods”, “Parker's Back”, “The Enduring Chill”, “Greenleaf”, “The Lame Shall Enter First”, “Revelation”, and “Judgment Day”.

Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.

©1956 1957, 1958, 1960, 1961, 1962, 1964, 1965; renewed 1993 by the Estate of Mary Flannery O’Connor (P)2010 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

“The current volume of posthumous stories is the work of a master, a writer's writer—but a reader's too—an incomparable craftsman who wrote, let it be said, some of the finest stories in our language." ( Newsweek)

“All in all they comprise the best collection of shorter fiction to have been published in America during the past twenty years.” ( Book Week)

“When I read Flannery O'Connor, I do not think of Hemingway, or Katherine Anne Porter, or Sartre, but rather of someone like Sophocles. What more can you say for a writer? I write her name with honor, for all the truth and all the craft with which she shows man's fall and his dishonor.” (Thomas Merton)

Pride goeth before the fall

Flannery O'Connor's short stories are fascinating the way looking at a household insect in a magnifying class is fascinating -- suddenly, a familiar, innocuous part of the world becomes a writhing grotesquery. Except, here, the object of examination is human self-importance, within the context of the American South circa 1960. If you've ever taken a creative writing class, you've probably read at least one of these stories. Fifty years after being written, they're still textbook examples of how to use flawed characters to reveal the absurdity of human attitudes. O'Connor sets her characters against some obstacle or antagonist, then dispassionately observes them as they drive themselves to their own ruin, usually with some final moment of epiphany.

It would be bleak stuff if it weren't so enthralling, and sometimes laugh-out-loud funny. There's the story of a young man who bristles at his mother's unthinking racism, yet whose own enlightenment rings false. There's a self-righteous father who neglects his disappointing son in order to "save" a delinquent teenage boy, whose feral cunning more than matches him. There's a self-satisfied middle-aged woman who can't understand why she attracts the ire of a college girl in a doctor's waiting room -- after all, she's the "right sort of person", not like that poor white trash family a few seats over.

My favorite in the collection deals with the dark comedy that results when the mother of a bookish 30-something hermit who still lives at home takes pity on and naively decides to rescue a very troubled young woman, much to her son's annoyance. Since I sometimes loan books I've finished to my own mother, I had a laugh at the thought of sharing that one. Not that I live with my mom or she often brings home tragic 19-year-old girls with nymphomaniac tendencies (alas).

There are a few other reasons O'Connor remains a staple of writing classes. She's great with language, voice, and nuanced observations of human behavior, and at using foreshadowing and meaningful imagery. She works in major social issues (e.g. race) and religious themes (e.g. suffering, epiphany), but doesn't hit the reader over the head with them.

If you enjoy stories that are dark, unsparing, and grotesque, but also humorous, compassionate, and deeply honest, consider this collection. Reading up on O'Connor's life, which came to an early end from illness, it wasn't hard for me to see how some of her own personal trials must have informed her work. The brilliance of these stories still shines, and her influence is visible in later writers who have picked up on her methods (e.g. Jonathan Franzen, Claire Messud).

The audiobook production is pretty good. Some readers are better than others (one guy's voices sound like characters from South Park!), but I think you really need to have those thick southern accents in your head to fully appreciate the writing, so consider a listen.

A Painful Grace, A Search for the Holy

Nice Catholic ladies aren't supposed to demolish you like this. O'Connor was born to be a literary knife fighter. Page after page, with zero sentimentality, O'Connor rips the grotesque out of her characters and with a bareknuckle, Christian realism absolutely dares you to turn the page. Hers is a painful grace, a search for the holy in the swamps of the Southern absurd. The brilliant thing about O'Connor is by telling her stories of divine grace among the heretics and the horrors, the reader might easily miss the divine spark in the grotesque and absurd darkness.

Many stories same flavor

Seems a dark view of people, restated several ways. I think I got the idea after the first two or three.

Brilliant Stories, Great Narration, Racist

Clearly Flannery O'Connor is regarded as one of America's most brilliant short story writers for a reason. Each story is spellbinding. The dark twisted side of everyday life blossoms in each story. The most common thread between each story is the bitterness and disfunction within families. Anyone who has experienced that will be fascinated. The narrators do a fantastic job. Having a variety helps break up the stories. I feel sure I got more out of this on audio than i would have in print.

I also have to say, it is hard to ingest the blatant racism in many of these stories. A tortured argument could be made that O'Connor is trying to "expose" the racism in America (particularly the South) and I am sure that what she depicts is accurate. But it doesn't take much digging through her personal letters to see the racism was an integral part of her life:

“About the Negroes, the kind I don’t like is the philosophizing, prophesying, pontificating kind, the James Baldwin kind. Very ignorant but never silent. Baldwin can tell us about what it feels to be a Negro in Harlam [sic] but he tries to tell us everything else too.”

Flannery O’Connor to Maryat Lee, May 21, 1964

It is a pity that someone who was such a brilliant observer of some aspects of the human condition could fail to see the humanity in others. I wish she had met Baldwin - he would have run rings around her. Making beautiful art for a filthy racist culture means that anything you make will always be stained.

mixed review

Would you say that listening to this book was time well-spent? Why or why not?

yes. i enjoyed most of the listens

Would you recommend Everything That Rises Must Converge to your friends? Why or why not?

maybe. if in converstion

What aspect of the narrators’s performance would you have changed?

two narrators kept the interest and two did not

Was Everything That Rises Must Converge worth the listening time?

yes. the stories were entertaining lessons. i felt bored by some

One ripping good yarn after another

I enjoyed Ms O'Connor's short stories as much or more than I've ever enjoyed any short stories. This is a challenging read because there is so much symbolism and depth to her writing. I advise using online resources such as cliffs and sparknotes so the reader doesn't miss anything. Be aware that Ms O'Connor's pen is cruel and prose is very biting. Her stories have quite a bit of "kick" to them. I'll definitely be reading more from her.

Must Have!

What made the experience of listening to Everything That Rises Must Converge the most enjoyable?

Listening to a Flannery O'Connor story is as enjoyable as reading one.

Who was your favorite character and why?

The Mother. She was strong-willed in her determination, even if her view of society was wrong and outdated.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

When the mother had her stroke, totally unpredictable and shocking.

Well done

The various voices for the different stories were spot on! It added to the listening experience and help the stories to not only come alive but, stick with me long after the audio ended.

Bringing Life to the Grotesque in Southern Goth

I bought and read Flanner O'Connor's complete works a long time ago and really enjoyed reading the books. I really enjoyed the audio version of "Everything that Rises Must Converge" even more than the books themselves. Somehow the narration in this series really made the stories come to life in a way that did not happen when I was reading the books. The incantation, the accents, the play in the different voices it all came together perfectly. Somehow, as the stories were being read to me on my walks, I was hit with even deeper understanding of the stories than I had before. I highly recommend this recording to those who are interested in the work of Flannery O'Connor. You will not be disappointed.
Flannery O'Connor was a devout Christian, and her stories reflect her faith in one way or another, in some stories it is more blatant than in others, but all the stories are wonderful for their grotesque characters struggling through everyday life. Most of them deal with the social upheaval in the Mid Twentieth Century South. And with that backdrop she begins in Southern Goth style to lampoon popular notions of Christianity, the notions held by many Christians themselves, but then she also effectively lampoons positions that are seen as intellectually superior to Christianity too. Really quite a masterful work of fiction.

Grim stories, not for the faint of heart!

I can't say I "enjoyed" these stories, but they certainly are both honest and strangely witty.

The readings were well done, on the whole.