Few people in Flannery O’Connor’s life seem to enjoy her stories—at least according to Wildcat, the new biopic about the acclaimed Southern gothic writer. Her mother wonders why she can’t write “nice stories.” A family friend asks for “cute stories.” Even her editor complains that her stories feel like they’re sticking pins in the reader. And to be fair, these are indeed troubling stories filled with grotesque characters: a puritanical wife who beats her husband with a broom after he gets a tattoo of Christ on his back, for example, or a traveling Bible salesman who preys on disabled people and collects their prosthetics as trophies.
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