Tom Perrotta on Flannery O’Connor

[Re-posted with permission from Jenny Attiyeh’s ThoughtCast] Tom Perrotta, the esteemed author of Little Children, Election, The Abstinence Teacher and the recently published novel The Leftovers (St. Martin’s Press, September 2011) speaks with ThoughtCast about a writer who fascinates, irritates and inspires him: Flannery O’Connor.  His relationship with her borders on kinship, and he admires and admonishes her as he would a family member, with whom he shares a bond both genetic and cultural.When asked to choose a specific piece of writing that’s had a significant impact on him, Tom chose O’Connor’s short story “Good Country People,” but then he threw in two others — “Everything that Rises Must Converge” and “Revelation.” As Tom explains, these three stories chart O’Connor’s careful trajectory, her unique vision, and her genius.

This interview is the second in a new ThoughtCast series which examines a specific piece of writing — be it a poem, play, novel, short story, work of non-fiction or scrap of papyrus — that’s had a significant influence on the interviewee, that’s shaped and moved them. Previously, Harvard literary critic Helen Vendler discussed an Emily Dickinson poem that’s stayed with her since she memorized it at the age of 13.

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