On a flight out West I had opportunity to again dare to immerse my soul in the gut-wrenching blood sacrifices that pierce O’Connor’s masterful short stories.

For much of my time, I focused relentlessly upon “Greenleaf,” a situationally ironic surname if ever there was one. Mrs. May, the protagonist, has a low view of most everyone outside of herself and her imagined importance. She looks down upon Mrs. Greenleaf, who prays and prostrates herself on the dirt out in the woods, petitioning the heavens over her own sinful condition, and she pleads for God’s wrath to pass her by.

But not Mrs. May. She’s got it all together. Or so she thinks.

Until a blood sacrifice occurs; until she is pierced by the bull; until she’s bloodied and broken. Then, in the unbearable light, she understands what she’s hated and resisted all along.

*I do not know how one reads O’Connor without coming away in spiritual sackcloth and ashes; she’s that biblical and piercing.