In Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor, her biographer Brad Gooch relates the story of a talk that she gave at Eastern Lansing High School. She was asked to talk about the role of stories to grab the attention of a world that has been desensitized to feeling.
She says that "modern writers must often tell 'perverse' stories to 'shock' a morally blind world."
"It requires considerable courage," she concluded "not to turn away from the storyteller."
Telling provocative stories are difficult. Listening to provocative stories require incredible courage and tenacity. In a world that has succumbed to simplistic answers to complex questions, O'Connor has the audacity to suggest that storytellers ought to be more graphic and compelling in the presentation of their stories and The Story.
O'Connor tells a startling story of Betty, a friend with a "history of horror." With breathtaking detail she gives the details of Betty's sordid life. Flannery invited Betty to visit and she objected because she did not want to defame the reputation of the great writer by visiting with her. It is an incredible story. (pages 281ff)
The best part of the story is Flannery's final line.
"Where you are wrong is in saying that you are a history of your horror. The meaning of the Redemption is precisely that we do not have to be our history." She then invited Betty to Thanksgiving dinner.
I want to end all of the stories that I tell with that simple line....The meaning of the Redemption is precisely that we do not have to be our history. Now that, my friend is Good News!
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"She would of been a good woman," The Misfit said, "if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
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