The shock of Flannery O'Connor's death came not in its unexpectedness but in the startling realization that her work is done….

There must be recognition that the two novels, less than twenty short stories, and fewer essays are the work complete of the fiction writer, in my opinion, most significant in our time. But is her work done, indeed? (p. 555)

She began with the Woe, Woe to you who are filled, for you shall hunger, as theme, given embodiment in her novel Wise Blood, in 1952. It was satire; it was bitter parody on the atheistic Existentialism then pervading the literary and philosophical scene. But it was more. Haze Motes, with his self-mutilated sightless eyes and other penitential mortifications, and his landlady and fascinated pursuer, at the dénouement, foretold a hunger now apparent. (p. 556)

[In] addition to being a brilliant satirist, she was a true humorist and possessed...