Rachel Baack

Summary: An emperor in search of wisdom seeks the advice of a wise old man and learns important lessons about who to value, what to do in life, and when to act.

Summary: A couple of extraterrestrial beings discuss a recent (and, to them, somewhat unwelcome) discovery of sentient life on another planet.

Summary: This spooky tale tells how a frightening supernatural event turned a local minister into the severe man that he became. I would recommend reading it with a modern translation next to you.

Summary: The narrator, claiming that he is not crazy, admits to killing a man and then tells how it happened. After recounting the story of the homicide, the man attempts to hide his actions from the police.

Summary: On a sea voyage to New York, the narrator of this story notices that his friend has brought, along with his wife and two sisters, an oddly shaped box. Although the narrator believes that he has determined the contents of the box to be a painting, some strange occurrences suggest that there may be something else in the box.

Summary: A wealthy prince throws a party and locks all the guests in to keep the “Red Death,” an illness that has been claiming lives all over the country, from overtaking them. At midnight, a new darkly-clad figure appears at the party. The prince does not know why he’s there, but he will soon find out.

Summary: The narrator of this short story goes to stay at a foreboding mansion because his friend, the owner, has fallen ill and asked him to come. The longer the narrator stays, however, the more he witnesses strange and creepy happenings.

Summary: The crazed Montresor carries out a sinister plan for getting revenge on a man who has insulted him.

Summary: In this eerie short story, a magical charm falls into the hands of the White family and affects its members in ways that they never would have imagined.

Summary: After a man commits an act of great evil, he is confronted by a being who makes clear to him the truths of who he is, and Markheim must make a painful decision as to who he will become.

Summary: This creepy short story by Roald Dahl starts out with a young traveler looking for a place to stay. When he finds a place that he thinks will do for the night, he begins to notice that something is not quite right about the little bed and breakfast.

Summary: This work was originally a radio play, and it traces the journey of a man as he drives across the country. Along his journey, he keeps seeing the same hitchhiker pop up on the side of the road, and he begins to wonder what on Earth could be going on. This exciting work will draw you in and possibly leave you with more questions than you had when you started.

Summary: After a man named Fettes has a strange encounter with a visiting doctor, the morbid truth about how these two men’s paths crossed in medical school comes out.

Summary: This short story features a seemingly perfect world where everyone is happy and everything is beautiful. The city holds one dark secret, however, that is the key to the people’s happiness.

Summary: The residents of a small town gather for the lottery on a bright, sunny day. At first glance, everything seems normal, but it quickly becomes apparent that there is something ominous about this event.

Summary: This collection of science-fiction short stories gives several different pictures of what the future might look like. In these stories, people have mastered the art of space travel, sometimes with disastrous consequences.

Summary: In this gothic short story by Nathaniel Hawthorne, a scientist named Alymer becomes obsessed with a birthmark, an “imperfection,” on his wife’s face. In his endeavor to use science to fix this blemish, he learns that scientific advancement may not be as wonderful as he imagined it to be.

Summary: An eleven-year old boy named Jerry goes on vacation with his mother and becomes intrigued when he sees some boys swimming through an underwater tunnel.

Summary: In Edgar Allan Poe’s short story, a vain young man falls in love with a woman at first sight, but things are not exactly what they seem.

Below are summaries of O'Connor's short stories, organized alphabetically by title:

• “The Artificial…”: An old man takes his grandson into the city to teach him a lesson, but the trip takes an unexpected turn. Rating: 4
• “The Barber”: A politically liberal professor comes into conflict with his barber, who holds different views, especially concerning race. Rating: 4.5
• “A Circle in the Fire”: A woman has some young, unexpected, and somewhat uninvited guests in this story that raises questions about the concepts of hospitality and ownership. Rating: 3.25
• “The Comforts of Home”: When a kindly woman brings a young criminal into her home, her son objects and tries to come up with a way to get rid of the girl. Rating: 3.25
• “The Crop”: A writer starts a new project and gets lost in the world of her own creation. Rating: 3
• “The Displaced Person”: A farm owner named Mrs. McIntyre hires a Polish refugee, and this decision soon causes some tensions on the farm. The story deals with issues like racial prejudice and entitlement. Rating: 4.5
• “The Enduring Chill”: A haughty twenty-five-year-old man returns to his country home from New York, expecting to die from an illness. Rating: 4
• “Enoch and the Gorilla”: An extension of the story of Enoch (from “The Peeler” and “The Heart of the Park”), this tale depicts a young man who wants to become someone and who uses unusual means involving a man in a gorilla costume to do so. Rating: 3
• “Everything That Rises Must Converge”: In this story, the reader learns about the vast differences in worldview between a mother and her son as they take a bus trip downtown. It is beautifully unsettling. Rating: 4.5
• “The Geranium”: An old man named Dudley moves to New York City to live with his daughter and immediately regrets it. He misses his life in the South and wants to return. Across the street from his daughter’s apartment, there sits a potted geranium that becomes symbolic for Dudley. Rating: 2.75
• “Good Country People”: The meeting of an atheist philosopher and a Bible salesman results in an unexpected revelation. Rating: 4.5
• “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”: A selfish grandmother tries to convince her other family members (her son, Daughter-in-law, and two grandchildren, none of whom respect the grandmother) to change the destination of their family vacation from Florida to Tennessee, using the recent escape of a murderer called “the Misfit” to deter them from heading toward the place from which he escaped. The story is full of ironic twists and ends with a shocking conclusion. Rating: 4.75
• “Greenleaf”: Mrs. May, a farm-owner with two adult sons who both live at home, employs Mr. Greenleaf. Both Mr. and Mrs. Greenleaf are Christians, but Mrs. May’s sense of morality comes from her success. One day, a bull gets out on Mrs. May’s property, and she asks Mr. Greenleaf to shoot it. The end of this story is both surprising and thought-provoking. Rating: 4.25
• “The Heart of the Park”: This story is a continuation of “The Peeler.” Enoch has been working at a park that has a mysterious object at its center that Enoch feels he must show someone. On the day that the story takes place, the perfect candidate to see this object arrives. Rating: 3.75
• “Judgement Day”: An old man named Tanner has been forced off of his property in Georgia where he lived with a man whom he befriended. Because of this, he moved to New York City to live with his daughter, where he met another, less friendly man who reminded him of his friend back in Georgia. He is now planning to escape New York City and head back to his home. Very reminiscent of “The Geranium” with a more violent twist. Rating: 3
• “The Lame Shall Enter First”: Determined to do a good deed, Sheppard invites a juvenile delinquent to live with him in hopes of rehabilitating the boy. He is not prepared, however, for the events that will unfold as a result of his actions. Rating: 3.5
• “A Late Encounter with the Enemy”: An old war veteran who is determined not to care about the past is forced to face reality. Rating: 3.75
• “The Life You Save May Be Your Own”: A wanderer named Tom T. Shiftlet stops at Mrs. Crater’s farm, where he sees a car that he would like to have. He offers to do work around the farm in exchange for a place to stay, and Mrs. Crater, hoping to rope Mr. Shiftlet into marrying her deaf-mute daughter, agrees to this deal. Rating: 4
• “Parker’s Back”: A tattooed, un-religious man marries a moralistic Christian woman and decides to get a tattoo on his back that his wife won’t be able to hate. Rating: 5
• “The Partridge Festival”: A self-important young man goes to his great-aunts’ hometown to gather information about a man whom he idolizes, and he learns more than he ever intended to. Rating: 4.75
• “The Peeler”: Seemingly a continuation of “The Train,” this story features a man named Hazel who has an unsettling encounter with a blind man handing out tracts and an overly friendly teenager named Enoch. Rating: 3.5
• “A Stroke of Good Fortune”: A proud woman faces a surprising medical issue. Rating: 4
• “The River”: The reader gets to experience the thoughts of an ornery young boy about the events surrounding his trip to see a travelling preacher. Rating: 3.25
• “A Temple of the Holy Ghost”: A precocious young girl is visited by her vain cousins, and they tell her a story about an experience they had that makes her reconsider her theology. Rating: 5
• “The Train”: A traveler mistakes the identity of a porter on his train and remembers his past. Rating: 3
• “The Turkey”: An eleven-year-old boy has as existential crises as he attempts to catch a wild turkey. Rating: 4.25
• “A View of the Woods”: A disagreement between a grandfather and granddaughter over a business decision escalates until it reaches a shocking conclusion. Rating: 4.5
• “Why Do the Heathen Rage?”: After Tilman has a stroke, his wife hopes that their sluggish son will take charge of the household. Rating: 4
• “Wildcat”: An old blind man, smelling a bloodthirsty wildcat approaching, recalls a similar experience from his childhood and experiences a range of emotions related to what he believes to be his impending death. Rating: 3.25
• “You Can’t Be Any Poorer Than Dead”: A fourteen-year-old boy experiences a tumult of emotions following his great uncle’s death, and he takes extreme action. Rating: 3.75

Summary: Reverend Hooper, the pastor of a church in a small Puritan town, comes to church one day with a veil covering his face. His congregation soon starts to feel uncomfortable with the minister’s choice to wear the veil and to speculate about its meaning.

Summary: After an unfortunate incident forces him to flee the scene of a crime, Francis Villon finds shelter with an older man of the army, with whom he has an interesting discussion about the relative evils committed by thieves and “men of honor.”

Summary: This story centers on the struggles of two of the workers in the iron mills, Deborah and Wolfe. As the two struggle to survive, they make a series of choices that could have serious consequences. The story raises questions about who is responsible for the actions of those who are put in desperate situations.

Summary: In this short story, an important piece of paper flies out of Tom’s window as he’s getting ready to go to the movies. Tom decides to venture out on the ledge of his eleventh-story window to get it, and, as he does, he comes to some important realizations about life.

This aptly-named collection of short stories provides a look into the varied experiences of several Black teenaged protagonists. It offers stories of joy, of sorrow, of the exciting, of the mundane, and of everything else in between.