vanessakm's profile picture

vanessakm 's review for:

2.0

Oh fine. I'll buck the trend here. I have a memory of reading and liking the author's Wise Blood years ago. This mash-up of Catholicism, William Faulkner and Hieronymus Bosch was, however, a dreary slog indeed.

This is a posthumously published collection of nine short stories that serve as twisted morality plays that I confess I don't totally understand. The various protagonists aren't truly amoral but are unsatisfied with life and mostly lacking in empathy and/or self-awareness and frequently meet gruesome endings. O'Connor can write some beautiful sentences but that just wasn't enough to overcome the piety which is somehow both heavy-handed and abstruse.

I prayed while reading this book...for it to end.