[The] shocking or violent incidents in [Flannery O'Connor's] stories strike chords that reverberate loudly and lengthily regardless of a reader's own bias.

In most of O'Connor's major stories, these moments of violence or death occur on or near the last page: the Misfit shoots the Grandmother, Sheppard discovers Norton's body, Julian's mother dies on the pavement, Mr. Guizac is run over by a tractor, Hazel Motes is found in a ditch. But not all of O'Connor's violent endings require a death to render them shocking. In fact, some of her best shocks are created by an assault on the psyche. This is what happens to Asbury, who comes home to die, but doesn't; to Mrs. Cope, who can't, as she watches her woods burn; or to Joy-Hulga as Manley Pointer, the phony Bible salesman, runs off with both her artificial leg and her intellectual naivete. Such endings are...