So much flavor and such great characters in perfect short-story-sized dollops. I've not read Ms. O'Connor since high school; I'm looking forward to reading the rest of her stuff. ( )

At first I thought the Catholicism and slight almost allegorical quality would irritate me, but these stories are so good that they didn't. Great dialogue, great story construction, great sense of humor. ( )

My reactions as I read:

"In case of an accident, anyone seeing her dead on the highway would know at once that she was a lady."

Yes, girl. Always dress like the Doctor will appear and whisk you away!

“In my time,” said the grandmother, folding her thin veined fingers, “children were
more respectful of their native states and their parents and everything else.

Immediately proceeds to NOT practice what she preaches...oof, ick. Exasperating woman.

“Gone With the Wind,” said the grandmother. “Ha. Ha.”

I actually loled at this...snorted more like. Both love and hate grandma...

She was sitting against the side of the red gutted ditch, holding the screaming baby, but she only had a cut down her face and a broken shoulder.

Like it's only a flesh wound. What is wrong with this grandma?

"Why you're one of my babies. You're one of my own children!"

Trying to place ourselves above the lowly criminal, I see.

"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."

PREACH MR. CRIMINAL-MAN, SIR!!!

Ok, racist, petty, self-sentric old lady gets her entire family killed and her own abrupt end because she can't shut her mouth. She views the criminal as "not good" and the criminal views her as "not good." Is "goodness" only in the eyes of the beholder? Is "goodness" purely subjective? Perspective is individual reality. Perception is 9/10ths of the law... ( )

The grandmother wants to go to East Tennessee but her son Bailey wants to take the family to Florida.

We learn about the dangerous Misfit, who has escaped from prison and is heading towards Florida.

The grandmother wants to avoid him too of course and persuades Bailey that they should go where she wants.

There was the children’s mother, eight-year-old John Wesley, little June Star and the baby.

The grandmother manipulates the children into wanting to visit a certain house with a secret panel that she had visited when young, She thinks she knows exactly which road to turn off to get to it.

The house is in Georgia, which they were driving through.

They drive up a dirt road to get to this house.

The grandmother suddenly recalls that the house is not in Georgia after all but in Tennessee, but she says nothing.

They have a car accident; they see a car with three people in it.

One of them is older with silver-rimmed spectacles, He and the two boys have guns.

The older man’s face looks very familiar to the grandmother. Then she remembers – it's the Misfit.

He says it would have been better for her if she hadn’t recognized him.

She says she knows he is a good man at heart.

The boys take Bailey and John Wesley into the woods with them. Shortly afterwards two pistol shots are heard.

The grandmother talks to the Misfit and recommends that he pray.

The Misfit tells her they had said he had killed his “daddy” but that was a lie, since he had died in 1919 of the “epidemic flu”.

The boys come from the woods with Bailey’s yellow shirt and the Misfit puts it on.

Now the boys take the mother, baby and the little girl to the woods.

They all seem to be in a daze and don’t seem to understand what’s happening.

There is a piercing scream from the woods and three gun shots are heard.

When the grandmother feels compassion for the Misfit and feels that he is one of her own children, he shoots her three times through the chest.

Despite its deadliness, the story is humorous.

One of its morals seems to be that one should not try to force or manipulate things/people to get what one wants; that is what the grandmother does and look what happens to her.

People should let go and not force things but on the other hand not be naive.

There are many illusions. The road they drive up, where they meet the Misfit, is not the place where they can find the house they’re looking for, which isn’t even in Georgia.

Even though they know the man is the dangerous Misfit, the family doesn’t seem to realize what is going to happen.

They gladly go into the woods with the two boys and are killed.. The others don’t seem to notice the shots.

When the grandmother sees her son Bailey’s shirt being given to the Misfit, she apparently can’t even remember it’s his shirt.

It must be the grandmother’s and the whole family’s fate to meet up with the Misfit and be murdered.

The grandmother thinks she can influence the Misfit to change his ways by praying, even though she knows how evil he is.

The owner of a barbecue, Red Sammy, says “a good man is hard to find” and this family finds the very worst man in the country, the Misfit.. ( )

NA ( )