At the deepest, most molten core of all of O’Connor’s work is her Catholicism, or, as she says, “the stinking mad shadow of Jesus.” Every story she wrote hinges upon her characters’ stain of original sin, and what grace they are sometimes allowed is hard won, fleeting, and almost always too late to make much of a difference in the end. Her violence, which is the most shocking and immediately apparent attribute of her work, is the violence of Catholicism, a religion in which in the central symbol—fondled on a rosary, hung over the bed, worn on a necklace at the throat—is a crucifix, an
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