[Coles] offers us a sensitive, acutely discerning examination of the attitudes, religious beliefs and intuitive psychological insights O'Connor brought to her work. . . . Anyone who has read O'Connor will appreciate Coles's illumination of what he considers the main purpose of her storytelling: 'showing the depth of God's mysteries.'

Dr. Coles enriches our appreciation of this remarkable writer and her milieu. The encounter with him, also, is no small part of the reward.

Perhaps the greatest strengths of Flannery O'Connor's South are Coles's deep knowledge of Southern folkways and discussions of how O'Connor embodied and drew from this culture. I know of no better description of O'Connor's relationship to the evangelical South than Coles's. He also does a particularly fine job of establishing O'Connor's place in the 1950s South, particularly her attitudes towards blacks and the Civil Rights movement. Finally, Coles is masterful in his discussion of O'Connor's anti-intellectualism and her self-skepticism . . . All in all, Flannery O'Connor's South is one of the handful of crucial books on O'Connor.