Flannery O'Connor and the Dummy

Book Review Flannery O'Connor

This review was first published Jan. 19 2005 and met with good reviews, it aint easy reviewing but I continue pushing that boulder up the hill, the hill grows steeper and the boulder larger but I just keep growing stronger...kinda...or maybe just more deluded. JW July 25 2005

A Good Man Is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O'Connor
Edition: Paperback
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13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
I seen the dummy!, January 19, 2005

I recommend reading Linda Linguvic's review, she is dead right. Reading Ms. O'Connor stories is time well invested, and I agree one at a time is about all you can to digest, its like Harper Lee meets Edger Allan Poe. I always find myself in surreal situations that remind me of a Flannery O'Conner story...STOP READING AT THIS POINT AND GO TO LINDAS REVIEW...You see I am in a witness protection program and the only way I can communicate with my family is through Amazon...sad but false.Which reminds me of when I was a kid visiting my grand parents and favorite uncle in North Carolina (we stayed with them every summer until they told my folks to stop). My mom, grandparents,uncle and brother went a visitin' some obscure relatives in a town that seemed to make my grandfather grumpy, reckon that would have been any town USA. However this particular town was near another particular town that held something of interest, the spaghetti man, or as my grandfather called him the dummy. They called him the spaghetti man because he was Italian, he had worked for a circus and happened to die in the nearby town I mentioned, back in the early 20th century is my guess. The manager of the circus only gave the local funeral director a deposit for the burial with the promise of returning with final payment, which never came. So the Spaghetti man/mummy/dummy remained in his freezer for years. The son inherited the business as well as the dummy as I will refer to him from this sentence on until the end of my review. Well back in the 60's my brother, uncle and to a lesser degree myself badgered my grandfather enough that he agreed to leave the family gathering to go find the dummy. He found the town just fine it being on the map and all, but had to ask directions to find the dummy "where's the dummy"? after several blind alleys we found the funeral home and in the garage the owner took us for a small fee to the garage, he opened the freezer and there in the flesh was a shrunken up freezer burnt dummy! One of those moments you never forget, a certain smell might take you back or a foreign accent, but you dont forget those memory's by god! cause that's what life's made of, memories and things like that, eating too. Years later in the year 2000 I visited my folks in NC and in honor of the dummy I went to Target and purchased a white T shirt a couple of sizes to big and a black marker. I laid the T-shirt on my kitchen table and scrawled "I seen the dummy" across the front and into the armpit. The next day I showered,shaved and put on my new shirt, drove to the airport early , requested exit row (I'm above average in height you know) and flew to Charlotte. I then boarded a commuter plane to New Bern and the flight attendant asked me what my shirt said and I told her "I seen the dummy" ...Even though I was in the front row and she had to sit in the jump seat in front of me she was sort of cool and impersonal the rest of the flight, people you figure them out? If you like reading, buy Flannery O'Conner its not a walk in the park but you aint no dummy now are you?