A Good Man is Hard to Find

Infobox Book |
name = A Good Man Is Hard To Find


image_caption = First edition cover
author = Flannery O'Connor
country = United States
language = English
genre = Southern Gothic
publisher = Harcourt, Brace and Company
pub_date = May 12, 1955
media_type = Print (Hardcover)
pages = 256 pp
isbn = NA

"A Good Man Is Hard To Find and Other Stories" (published in England as "The Artificial Nigger and Other Tales") is a collection of short stories by American author Flannery O'Connor. The collection was first published in 1955. The subjects of the short stories range from baptism ("The River") to serial killers ("A Good Man is Hard to Find") to human greed and exploitation ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own").

Contents

It contains the following stories:
*"A Good Man Is Hard to Find"
*"The River"
*"The Life You Save May Be Your Own"
*"A Stroke of Good Fortune"
*"A Temple of the Holy Ghost"
*"The Artificial Nigger"
*"A Circle in the Fire"
*"A Late Encounter with the Enemy"
*"Good Country People"
*"The Displaced Person"

Allusions and references

Allusions in other works

Sufjan Stevens has a song called "A Good Man is Hard to Find" on the album "Seven Swans".

Morphine has a song called "A Good Woman is Hard to Find" on their swansong album "The Night".

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" is the title of the last track on Tom Waits' 2002 album "Blood Money".

Bruce Springsteen released a song titled "A Good Man is Hard to Find (Pittsburgh)" on his 1998 retrospective collection "Tracks". Springsteen has stated that his important reading began with authors such as O'Connor, whose works he felt captured aspects of America that he wanted to explore in his own work. [http://www.doubletakemagazine.org/mag/html/backissues/12/steen/]

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

A television adaptation of the short story "The Life You Save May Be Your Own," starring Gene Kelly, was broadcast on the CBS network's "Schlitz Playhouse" on February 1, 1957. O'Connor was not pleased with the results, as evidenced in a letter to a friend: "The best I can say for it is that it conceivably could have been worse. Just conceivably." [cite book |last=Fitzgerald |first=Sally |title=Flannery O'Connor: The Habit of Being |origyear=1979 |publisher=Vintage |pages=191,205]

A film adaptation of the short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find", titled "Black Hearts Bleed Red", was made in 1992 by New York filmmaker Jeri Cain Rossi. The film stars noted New York artist Joe Coleman. [http://www.ubu.com/film/rossi.html]

An original 45-minute modern chamber opera based on "A Good Man is Hard to Find" was completed in 2003 by David Volk, a University of Georgia music doctoral student, as part of his dissertation requirements in composition. The chamber opera was performed at the Seney-Stovall Chapel in Athens with grant funding from the University's Ideas for Creative Exploration (ICE). Later that same year, the work was performed at Piedmont College in Demorest, GA, and in Milledgeville, GA, at "Flannery O'Connor: the Visionary and the Venacular," an interdisciplinary conference sponsored by Georgia College and State University (and home of the Flannery O'Connor Library). In 2007, the work was performed at the University of Virginia's College at Wise where Dr. Volk teaches as Assistant Professor of Music.

Footnotes

External links

* [http://pegasus.cc.ucf.edu/~surette/goodman.html Full text of the titular story from the collection.]

* [http://faculty.smu.edu/nschwart/2312/lifeyousave.htm Full text of "The Life You Save May Be Your Own."]

ee also

*Southern Gothic
*Southern literature
*The Grotesque