A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) marks O’Connor’s debut short story collection. It shares a distinctive moral perspective similar to that found in ‘‘Everything That Rises Must Converge.’’

O’Connor’s novel The Violent Bear It Away (1960) centers on a young boy grappling with his destiny as a prophet.

The Collected Stories of William Faulkner (1995), edited by Erroll McDonald, compiles Faulkner’s short stories. These tales delve into moral conflicts set against a Southern backdrop. O’Connor is frequently compared to Faulkner.

A Curtain of Green and Other Stories (1941), a story collection by Eudora Welty, shares O’Connor’s talent for regional dialect but adopts a more gentle approach to its quirky characters.

The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter (1940), Carson McCullers’ debut novel, portrays the moral isolation of a deaf-mute girl living in a small Southern town.

The Second Coming (1999), by Walker Percy, is a tragicomic novel that follows a man’s quest for love and spiritual meaning.