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Everything That Rises Must Converge Audiobook
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(4.21) - 8,982 listener ratings
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Publisher Description
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.
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"I'd read two of these for classes before, so I decided to finish the collection. They're all incredibly brutal in that classic O'Connor style, and in some ways I find her assumption of characters in narrative a bit presumptuous. But as difficult a pill as they her stories are to swallow, there are also some genuinely good messages that come out of them. Nobody makes an epiphany in a short story as boldly perceptive, bitingly honest, or brilliantly designed as Flannery - and nobody epiphanies that contain such, well, epiphany in the original sense of the word."
— Alex (4 out of 5 stars)
Quotes
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“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 -
“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 -
“Bronson Pinchot, Karen White, Mark Bramhall, and Lorna Raver flawlessly convey the characters’ ignorance as well as their gut-wrenching epiphanies…This production expertly communicates O’Connor’s literary complexity.”
— AudioFile -
“All in all they comprise the best collection of shorter fiction to have been published in America during the past twenty years.”
— Book Week
Awards
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Winner of an AudioFile Earphones Award
Everything That Rises Must Converge Listener Reviews
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" Certainly an interesting group of short stories. I really enjoyed her writing style. By the end of the book, though, I felt like I had my fill of Ms. O'Connor for a while. "
— Susie, 1/27/2014 -
" What an incredible collection of stories. No happy endings here. A little grotesque and a whole lot thought provoking, and not necessarily in a nice way. Kind of puts you off ever going to Georgia. . . . . . Hmmm. Maybe a bit extreme. "
— Robyn, 1/10/2014 -
" What can I say about Miss O'Connor? She may be the most brilliant female American author. I spent years studying her writing in college and I'm always surprised that so many don't know who she is. "
— Sydnee, 11/15/2013 -
" Wow, a very depressing read, but really human and good at the same time. This was written towards the end of Flannery O'Connor's short, but prolific, life. Quite tragic, actually. "
— Cami, 10/27/2013 -
" Having to read something from Flannery O'Connor is a dark spot in my high school career. "
— Scarlet, 10/13/2013 -
" She makes me think and I like that. "
— Alice, 9/1/2013 -
" Flannery O'Connor will blow your mind. "
— Jess, 6/11/2013 -
" "I've read your book with great delight and I wish I had some reasons to tell you why I think it's so fine. However, I merely enjoys, I does not analyze." (from The Habit of Being, the Letters of Flannery O'Connor.) "
— Rannie, 5/11/2013 -
" I actually have Flannery O'Connor : Collected Works : Wise Blood / A Good Man Is Hard to Find / The Violent Bear It Away / Everything that Rises Must Converge / Essays & Letters but I will mark it down as this since these are the stories I am picking out of the collection. "
— Aylin, 4/30/2013 -
" Yes, I only read this book because a very important character on "LOST" was reading it. But I'm glad I did. I can see the importance of her stories based on the time of it's first publishing. The stories are dark and bring a new take (for me) to the moral lessons reminiscent of Aesop's Fables. "
— Carrie, 3/13/2013 -
" I don't always understand O'Connor, but when I've finished reading a story I'm sure that it's important that I do. Maybe one day I will. "
— Brittany, 2/24/2013 -
" Wonderfully compelling stories. I just wish there were some happy ones in there that didn't involve death/race/mothers. "
— Rob, 1/7/2013 -
" If only I could write like Flannery O'Connor.... "
— Deb, 12/28/2012 -
" Flannery O'Connor always leaves you hoping for a happy ending but then dashes your hopes to bits. "
— Sheri-lee, 11/18/2012 -
" Very little variation on themes or style, read the first three stories, you've got the idea "
— Nate, 7/1/2012 -
" I liked "Parker's Back" and "The Lame Shall Enter First" best. She kept getting me with the surprise deaths -- what a tricky lady! "
— Kayla, 3/14/2012 -
" I mark The Enduring Chill, The Lame Shall Enter First, and Revelation as favorites of this superb set. "
— Timmy, 11/26/2011 -
" O'Conner is an excellent writer, but most of these stories didn't really connect with me. I think it was due to the subject matter. "
— Dan, 10/14/2011 -
" I finally understand Flannery O'Connor. Sort of. :) I still don't like the deathly endings of her stories, but I did love "Revelation" and "A Late Encounter With the Enemy." <br/> <br/> "
— Christel, 5/18/2011 -
" i read most of this here and there between january and like, now. "
— Chris, 4/11/2011 -
" I loved Wise Blood! The essays are wonderful. This book is my favorite gift to myself. "
— Alicia, 4/8/2011 -
" I am familiar with O'Connor and really enjoy her sense of humor and her insight. I just finished "Wise Blood" and honestly am struggling with it, but am really enjoying "A good Man is Hard to Find." "
— Lucy, 3/12/2011 -
" Right now I am dithering on her writing...She's got only two stars because her subject matter is akin to lifting boxes filled with lead: they're heavy and there is something in them, but you're not sure you need it. 5 stars for writing, 2 for content. "
— Charity, 2/18/2011 -
" This books doesn't need a review. <br/><br/>Flannery is awesome. No one will ever convince me otherwise. <br/><br/>I *heart* Flannery. "
— Jaine, 2/10/2011 -
" I haven't read all these stories, but I clicked to review mostly because of A Good Man is Hard to Find which is an unbelievable story. Must read. "
— Lindsey, 8/21/2010 -
" if you have not read this... i don't really know you "
— Rebecca, 4/28/2010 -
" I will not explain Flannery O'Connor. You must read Flannery O'Connor, because your life will be better. <br/> <br/>(Even the letters are worth reading, and you cannot say that about everyone whose letters are published.) "
— Arwen, 4/12/2010 -
" It would help if you read "Mystery and Manners" if you are having trouble understanding Flannery O'Connors works...She explains her art very well in this collection of notes from her speeches, essays and/or talks that she gave. "
— Elizabeth, 3/6/2010
About Flannery O’Connor
Flannery O’Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. She was awarded the Best of the National Book Awards for Fiction in 2009, and she was the first fiction writer born in the twentieth century to have her works collected and published by the Library of America. When she died at the age of thirty-nine, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers.
About the Narrators
Bronson Pinchot, Audible’s Narrator of the Year for 2010, has won Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Awards, AudioFile Earphones Awards, Audible’s Book of the Year Award, and Audie Awards for several audiobooks, including Matterhorn, Wise Blood, Occupied City, and The Learners. A magna cum laude graduate of Yale, he is an Emmy- and People’s Choice-nominated veteran of movies, television, and Broadway and West End shows. His performance of Malvolio in Twelfth Night was named the highlight of the entire two-year Kennedy Center Shakespeare Festival by the Washington Post. He attended the acting programs at Shakespeare & Company and Circle-in-the-Square, logged in well over 200 episodes of television, starred or costarred in a bouquet of films, plays, musicals, and Shakespeare on Broadway and in London, and developed a passion for Greek revival architecture.
Karen White has been narrating audiobooks of all genres since 1999. Honored to be included in AudioFile’s Best Voices, she’s also a four-time Audie Finalist and has earned multiple AudioFile Earphones Awards and Library Journal starred reviews.
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.
Lorna Raver, named one of AudioFile magazine’s Best Voices of the Year, has received numerous Audie Award nominations and many AudioFile Earphones Awards. She has appeared on stage in New York, Los Angeles, and regional theaters around the country. Among her many television credits are NYPD Blue, Judging Amy, Boston Legal, ER, and Star Trek. She starred in director Sam Raimi’s film Drag Me to Hell.