Everything That Rises Must Converge Stories

Julian, a recent college graduate, accompanies his mother on the bus to her weekly exercise session. A self-styled intellectual, Julian resents his mother’s ingrained prejudice and superiority, but is forced to face the consequences when their actions put them at odds with the passengers of their recently racially-integrated bus. American author Flannery O’Connor is known for her portrayal of flawed characters and their inevitable spiritual transformation. “Everything That Rises Must Converge” addresses themes of institutional discrimination at a time when racial barriers were being shattered. HarperPerennialClassics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

Flannery O'Connor was working on Everything That Rises Must Converge at the time of her death. This collection is an exquisite legacy from a genius of the American short story, in which she scrutinizes territory familiar to her readers: race, faith, and morality. The stories encompass the comic and the tragic, the beautiful and the grotesque; each carries her highly individual stamp and could have been written by no one else.

From a cuneiform tablet to a Chicago prison, from the depths of the cosmos to the text on our T-shirts, Lawrence Weschler finds strange connections wherever he looks. The farther one travels (through geography, through art, through science, through time), the more everything seems to converge -- at least, it does if you're looking through Weschler's giddy, brilliant eyes. Weschler combines his keen insights into art, his years of experience as a chronicler of the fall of Communism, and his triumphs and failures as the father of a teenage girl into a series of essays sure to illuminate, educate, and astound.

Wise Blood, Flannery O'Connor's first novel, is the story of Hazel Motes who, released from the armed services, returns to the evangelical Deep South. There he begins a private battle against the religiosity of the community and in particular against Asa Hawkes, the 'blind' preacher, and his degenerate fifteen-year-old daughter. In desperation Hazel founds his own religion, 'The Church without Christ', and this extraordinary narrative moves towards its savage and macabre resolution. 'A literary talent that has about it the uniqueness of greatness.' Sunday Telegraph 'No other major American writer of our century has constructed a fictional world so energetically and forthrightly charged by religious investigation.' The New Yorker 'A genius.' New York Times

At his wit’s end with his son’s grief over the death of his mother a year earlier, Sheppard invites a troubled youth, Rufus, into their home. Contemptuous of Sheppard, Rufus resists the man’s attempts to improve him, but the extent—and consequences—of Rufus’s disdain for Sheppard become clear only in Rufus’s dealings with Sheppard’s son, Norton. American author Flannery O’Connor is known for her portrayal of flawed characters and their inevitable spiritual transformation. “The Lame Shall Enter First” is a haunting story of a flawed man unable to connect with and comfort his grieving son. HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.

This study explores the dualities that inform the entire body of Flannery O'Connor's fiction. From the almost unredeemable world of Wise Blood to the climactic moments of revelation that infuse The Violent Bear It Away and Everything That Rises Must Converge, O'Connor's novels and stories wrestle with extremes of faith and reason, acceptance and revolt; they arch between cool narrative and explosive action, between a sacramental vision and a primary intuition of reality.

More information to be announced soon on this forthcoming title from Penguin USA. .

“I intend to stand firm and let the peacocks multiply, for I am sure that, in the end, the last word will be theirs.” —Flannery O’Connor When she was young, the writer Flannery O’Connor was captivated by the chickens in her yard. She’d watch their wings flap, their beaks peck, and their eyes glint. At age six, her life was forever changed when she and a chicken she had been training to walk forwards and backwards were featured in the Pathé News, and she realized that people want to see what is odd and strange in life. But while she loved birds of all varieties and kept several species around the house, it was the peacocks that came to dominate her life. Written by Amy Alznauer with devotional attention to all things odd and illustrated in radiant paint by Ping Zhu, The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor explores the beginnings of one author’s lifelong obsession. Amy Alznauer lives in Chicago with her husband, two children, a dog, a parakeet, sometimes chicks, and a part-time fish, but, as of today, no elephants or peacocks. Ping Zhu is a freelance illustrator who has worked with clients big and small, won some awards based on the work she did for aforementioned clients, attracted new clients with shiny awards, and is hoping to maintain her livelihood in Brooklyn by repeating that cycle.