{"id":32616,"date":"2012-06-04T11:47:39","date_gmt":"2012-06-04T15:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=32616"},"modified":"2014-03-25T12:30:59","modified_gmt":"2014-03-25T16:30:59","slug":"flannery-oconnor-reads-1959","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/","title":{"rendered":"Flannery O&#8217;Connor Reads, 1959"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t until <a href=\"http:\/\/www.openculture.com\/2012\/05\/rare_1959_audio_flannery_oconnor_reads_a_good_man_is_hard_to_find.html\" target=\"_blank\">Open Culture<\/a> shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of<em> A Good Man Is Hard to Find<\/em> that we realized we didn\u2019t know what her voice sounded like. The thirty-four-year-old author\u2019s Georgia accent is pronounced, and she puts over the story with a deadpan panache that brings out its full humor and horror. Truly a treat for a gray day.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"100%\" height=\"600\" scrolling=\"no\" frameborder=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/33678234&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;visual=true\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we didn\u2019t know what her voice sounded like. The thirty-four-year-old author\u2019s Georgia accent is pronounced, and she puts over the story with a deadpan panache that brings out [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":178,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7646],"tags":[7734,5227,1888,7259],"class_list":["post-32616","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-look-2","tag-a-good-man-is-hard-to-find","tag-audio","tag-flannery-oconnor","tag-southern-gothic"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Listen to Flannery O\u2019Connor read \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find.\u201d<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Flannery O&#039;Connor Reads, 1959 by Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Sadie Stein\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\"},\"headline\":\"Flannery O&#8217;Connor Reads, 1959\",\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\"},\"wordCount\":73,\"commentCount\":15,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"keywords\":[\"A Good Man is Hard to Find\",\"audio\",\"Flannery O'Connor\",\"Southern Gothic\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Listen\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\",\"name\":\"Listen to Flannery O\u2019Connor read \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find.\u201d\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00\",\"description\":\"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Flannery O&#8217;Connor Reads, 1959\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"description\":\"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\",\"name\":\"The Paris Review\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png\",\"width\":696,\"height\":696,\"caption\":\"The Paris Review\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview\",\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9\",\"name\":\"Sadie Stein\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Sadie Stein\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Listen to Flannery O\u2019Connor read \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find.\u201d","description":"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Flannery O'Connor Reads, 1959 by Sadie Stein","og_description":"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we","og_url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/","og_site_name":"The Paris Review","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","article_published_time":"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-1.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Sadie Stein","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@parisreview","twitter_site":"@parisreview","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Sadie Stein"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/"},"author":{"name":"Sadie Stein","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9"},"headline":"Flannery O&#8217;Connor Reads, 1959","datePublished":"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00","dateModified":"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/"},"wordCount":73,"commentCount":15,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"keywords":["A Good Man is Hard to Find","audio","Flannery O'Connor","Southern Gothic"],"articleSection":["Listen"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/","name":"Listen to Flannery O\u2019Connor read \u201cA Good Man Is Hard to Find.\u201d","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2012-06-04T15:47:39+00:00","dateModified":"2014-03-25T16:30:59+00:00","description":"June 4, 2012 \u2013 It wasn\u2019t until Open Culture shared this 1959 recording of Flannery O\u2019Connor reading the title story of A Good Man Is Hard to Find that we realized we","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2012\/06\/04\/flannery-oconnor-reads-1959\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Flannery O&#8217;Connor Reads, 1959"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","name":"The Paris Review","description":"The best prose, interviews, poetry, and art. Since 1953.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization","name":"The Paris Review","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/tpr-hadada-roundell-logo-square.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"The Paris Review"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/","https:\/\/x.com\/parisreview","https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/parisreview"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/a1aef49f81bfc540a37e03590f3bb4d9","name":"Sadie Stein","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/147299ffa10db51f1ff44a626a9211650a1c11f8fc07d102ab48e63ab3be037b?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Sadie Stein"},"url":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/author\/sstein\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32616","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/178"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32616"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32616\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68609,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32616\/revisions\/68609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32616"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32616"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32616"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}