A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories
{{Short description|1955 short story collection by Flannery O'Connor}}
{{about|the book|the short story|A Good Man Is Hard to Find (short story)|the song|A Good Man Is Hard to Find (song)}}
{{Use mdy dates|date=March 2025}}
{{Infobox book |
| name = A Good Man Is Hard to Find
| image = AGoodManIsHardToFind.jpg
| caption = First edition cover
| author = Flannery O'Connor
| country = United States
| language = English
| genre = Southern Gothic
| published = 1955 (Harcourt, Brace and Company)
| media_type = Print (hardcover)
| pages = 256 pp
| isbn = 978-0156364652
}}
A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories (published in the United Kingdom 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 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"), although O'Connor described the ten-story collection as "nine stories about original sin, with my compliments".{{Cite news |last=Power |first=Chris |date=2012-09-06 |title=A brief survey of the short story part 43: Flannery O'Connor |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/sep/06/brief-survey-short-story-flanner-oconnor |access-date=2025-05-30 |work=The Guardian |language=en-GB |issn=0261-3077}}
The majority of the stories include jarring violent scenes that make the characters undergo a spiritual change. Influenced by O'Connor's Catholicism, the stories frequently apply Catholic morals to life-or-death scenarios. For instance, in the story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" the villain states, "She would have been a good woman if it had been somebody there to shoot her every minute of her life."
Contents
It contains the following stories:
Title
File:A Good Man Is Hard to Find.pdf
The title was taken from the blues song, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", written by Eddie Green and popularized by the singer Bessie Smith in 1927.
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 March 1, 1957.[https://www.newspapers.com/clip/97589847/pittsburgh-sun-telegraph/ "Here Comes Kelly! Back to Our City, Natch"]. Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph. February 24, 1957. p. 37. Retrieved March 14, 2022. 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 |year=1979 |publisher=Vintage |pages=191, 205}}
A short film adaptation of the story "A Good Man Is Hard to Find", titled "Black Hearts Bleed Red", was released in 1993. The film was directed by New York filmmaker Jeri Cain Rossi and stars noted New York artist Joe Coleman.{{cite web|title=Black Hearts Bleed Red (1993)|url=https://movies.nytimes.com/movie/434450/Black-Hearts-Bleed-Red/details|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130427101319/http://movies.nytimes.com/movie/434450/Black-Hearts-Bleed-Red/details|url-status=dead|archive-date=27 April 2013|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=The New York Times|date=2013|accessdate=20 December 2011}}
Musician Sufjan Stevens wrote a song titled "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" on his album Seven Swans; it is told from the viewpoint of the Misfit even though he is not the focus of the story.[http://www.pitchforkmedia.com/reviews/albums/7512-seven-swans Pitchfork review]
See also
{{portal|Novels}}
Footnotes
{{Reflist}}
External links
- [https://web.archive.org/web/20070320082423/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."]
- [https://books.google.com/books?id=-3guR1Zir30C&pg=PA1 A Good Man is Hard to Find] from Google Books
{{Works by Flannery O'Connor}}
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Category:1955 short story collections