First Confession

I hadn't read Frank O'Connor's stories in a very long time-- he fell into the gutter of authors I'd studied to a point of boredom as a student, and while I've spent a good deal of my adult life sweeping those gutters and asking absolution from what I've swept up, it took a while to get to him. I'd associated it so closely, in the vast netherlands of the juvenilia of my headspace, with hackneyed Catholic guilt tropes in Comic Sans all the way through...

I hadn’t read Frank O’Connor’s stories in a very long time– he fell into the gutter of authors I’d studied to a point of boredom as a student, and while I’ve spent a good deal of my adult life sweeping those gutters and asking absolution from what I’d swept up, it took a while to get back to O’Connor. I’d associated him so closely, in the vast netherlands of the Juvenilia of my headspace, with hackneyed Catholic guilt tropes in Comic Sans all the way through.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong– it’s delightful, right? I very nearly entered the realm of squealing schoolgirl as I got deeper into this one.