First Lines

Francis Marion Tarwater's uncle had been dead for only half a day when the boy got too drunk to finish digging his grave and a Negro named Buford Munson, who had come to get a jug filled, had to finish it and drag the body from the breakfast table where it was still sitting and bury it in a decent and Christian way, with the sign of its Saviour at the head of the grave and enough dirt on top to keep the dogs from digging it up.

 -Flannery O' Connor, The Violent Bear It Away

Oh, Flannery, your first sentence says it all! A bunch of weird religion and weird death is surely coming in the following pages.