First Flannery

The first time I read Flannery O’Connor’s story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find,” I was in college and it scared the shit out of me. I was taking a class called “Short Stories” and we were assigned the collection A Good Man Is Hard to Find. I trudged up to my attic bedroom to read the title story for class the next morning and was surprised by how funny the story was—the grandmother is ironic, unreliable, and sociopathic–and even more surprised by the lightning-quick change in tone, that a short story (a homework assignment!) could feature the systematic execution of an innocent family, little baby included. My plan had been to read this story then fall asleep, but I paced around my house for several hours, too afraid of the Misfit to turn out the lights, too excited about what writing could be to not read the story again.Nike footwear | Air Jordan

By Miciah Bay Gault

Miciah Bay Gault is the editor of Hunger Mountain at Vermont College of Fine Arts. She's also a writer, and her fiction and essays have appeared in Tin House, The Sun Magazine, The Southern Review, and other fine journals. She lives in Montpelier, Vermont with her husband and children.