In her collection of engaging and acutely observed short stories, Fragile Objects, Katy Carl shows a debt to Flannery O'Connor, especially with startling (often violent) endings or characters such as the unkempt “rosary lady” who attacks a school fundraising festival like Jesus among the moneychangers. Carl, who is Catholic and a mother, exposes her characters’ myopic self-regard as mercilessly as O’Connor does, and the movements of grace in these stories might be even more indistinguishable from the pathos of tragedy.
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