Recent book releases and — now films — are rekindling interest in the life and work of Catholic writer Flannery O’Connor, a Savannah, Georgia, native whose art was cut short by her early death in 1964.

The latest book, Startling Figures by independent scholar Michael O’Connell, came out in August, while Wildcat, a moving visual portrayal of Flannery O’Connor’s troubled life, premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (Tiff) on Sept. 11.

Perhaps it’s no surprise that contemporary writers, critics and now filmmakers are mining O’Connor’s literary canon for study and edification.

In Startling Figures, Michael O’Connell says the writer is central to any discussion of American Catholic fiction. “One must discuss O’Connor, because her work cast such a long shadow over the entire field,” O’Connell writes. “O’Connor’s influence can be found in nearly every Catholic writer who has come after her.”

O’Connell is an independent scholar specializing in contemporary American fiction and the interplay between religion and literature. He posits O’Connor as a mid-20th-century influencer of later Catholic writers such as Walker Percy, Tobias Wolff, Tim Gautreaux and Ron Hansen, and younger emerging novelists.

O’Connor’s first novel, Wise Blood, appeared in 1952. Her first collection of short stories — A Good Man Is Hard to Find — came in 1955, while her final novel, Everything That Rises Must Converge, was published posthumously, in 1965. Some critics regard the years 1945 to 1964, the period when O’Connor was most active, as the first real flowering of the American Catholic imagination.

Many contemporary Catholic authors have referred to O’Connor as one of the most significant writers of the 20th century for the infusion of Catholic elements in her work. When Catholic-themed literature fell out of vogue in the latter half of the 20th century, it was O’Connor who kept the flame alive.

Startling Figures discusses the use of violent images in O’Connor’s work as a narrative technique to disturb the reader and in turn point to the themes of suffering as a challenging prelude to transcendence and grace.

O’Connell says the subject of his new work deliberately included violent and disturbing elements in her novels and short stories to provoke certain responses among her readers.

“[O’Connor] has no problem declaring that she intends to make her particular, Catholic Christian worldview evident to her readers, and that violence is one of her primary strategies for doing so,” O’Connell writes. “She views confusion and disorientation as a, if not necessary, then at least sufficient, precursor to seeing things anew. It is a central tool she uses to shape the reader’s process of constructing meaning from the text.”

O’Connell suggests that the encounter with violence forces O’Connor’s characters to relinquish their reliance on their self-sufficiency and acknowledge that they are not in complete control of their lives. This loss of control, O’Connell says, is just one narrative technique O’Connor uses to emphasize humanity’s need for redemption.

The Startling Figures book preceded by just one month the world premiere of Ethan Hawke’s film Wildcat, which features his daughter playing the leading role. In an interesting twist in the casting, Maya Hawke portrays the emerging writer of the 1950s as well as the imagined female protagonist in some of O’Connor’s short stories, such as Parker’s Back and A Good Man Is Hard to Find.

While Wildcat does not aspire to literary criticism, it effectively presents O’Connor’s life as an ongoing period of endurance and suffering as she struggled not only to find an audience for her art, but also to live her Catholic faith in a meaningful way.

And while the film might not appeal as much to viewers unfamiliar with O’Connor and her work, it manages to convey the author’s own struggles to find grace at times of suffering, confusion and alienation from her family and her writing colleagues. In the film, the O’Connor character is constantly beset by relatives who implore her to write stories “that people might actually want to read.”

Wildcat does not delve deeply into more recent criticism of O’Connor as racially tainted. Director Hawke was aware of the suggestions of racist content in O’Connor’s writing and in her personal correspondence, but rather than seeking to whitewash the author’s reputation, he approached the racism question with honesty and even-handedness. A number of scenes in Wildcat, in fact, have the Flannery O’Connor character upbraiding family members for their genteel pretensions and their unctuous condescension toward Black neighbors.

In a guest column in the Sept. 3 issue of Variety magazine, Hawke expanded on his decision to move forward with the film despite uncertainties as to O’Connor’s true feelings about race. “I don’t know if O’Connor always condemned it [racism] but she certainly acknowledged it in herself and painted a harsh picture of its ugliness,” Hawke wrote.

Taken together, the Startling Figures book and the Wildcat film make a convincing case for O’Connor’s use of violent and disturbing scenarios to force her audience to consider the purpose of suffering and the bitter medicine of a saving grace.

The film and book also stay true to many of O’Connor’s deeply held thoughts on what wisdom a Catholic writer can impart to her reading audience. As O’Connor once wrote in one of her many essays, “All my stories are about the action of grace on a character who is not willing to support it, but most people think of these stories as hard, hopeless and brutal. … My subject in fiction is the action of grace in territory held largely by the devil.”

Startling Figures author O’Connell believes O’Connor’s use of violence as a literary technique provoking readers into a new awareness is something all committed Catholic novelists might want to consider.

“Violence in these stories is not an end unto itself,” O’Connell observes. “Instead, it becomes a kairotic [opportune] moment in which the individual can make a definite change in who she is and what she believes. In addition, Catholic authors consistently use violence as a means to unsettle their audience and force their readers to ask questions about just what happened in the story, and why. For the Catholic author, the answers to these questions often point toward a sacramental worldview that includes the possibility of the presence of God.”

As an academic exercise, Startling Figures doesn’t pack the emotional punch and urgency of Wildcat the film. Nonetheless, O’Connell’s book presents readers with a compelling new framework to appreciate O’Connor’s place as a mid-20th-century Southern Catholic writer struggling to convey through her art and her suffering how divine grace can still be found in the most unlikely of circumstances.

Mike Mastromatteo is a writer, editor and book reviewer from Toronto.