Wise Blood by Flannery O'Connor

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I read this in a sitting during a long pre-flight cocktail hour in the Atlanta airport, having spent yet another day in the South. Is the South haunting? Or does it just inspire haunted people to write?

This tale collects threads of religion, death, southernness, and ancestry. Thus to me it was haunting in a thoughtful way. I still don't quite know how to place the religious aspects of the book. For people that can't accept the divine yet can't deny religion, is there hope? For that matter, how can humans face death? The perspective shift over the last fifth of the book is absolutely frightening. Foreshadowing that death is the end of all people, and in several senses accepting the inevitability of death marks the end of life. There's no turning back.

I simply tore through and still ponder this book.