The Best American Catholic Short Stories captures twenty of the best short stories from thirteen American Catholic writers over the past seventy-five years. Spanning most of the twentieth century, the stories in this collection deal with many of the issues brought into the spotlight with Vatican II. Pat Schnapp and Dan McVeigh have assembled an extraordinary collection that is unique in its subject and scope. Major contributors include Mary Gordon, Flannery O'Connor, Ron Hansen, T. Coraghessan Boyle, and Richard Russo. An inspired collection of short stories from prolific Catholic writers over the past 75 years, this compilation is highlighted by Richard Russo's memoir, 'The Whore's Child;' Andre Dubus's complex family tale, 'A Father's Story;' Philip F. Deaver's provocative story of a man looking for inner peace, 'Silent Retreats;' and classics from Flannery O'Connor ('The Displaced Person') and Mary Gordon ('Mrs. Cassidy's Last Year'). ― Library Journal A must-read for anyone who likes a good story. ...Stories of this kind with their layers of meaning cry out to be discussed. ― St. Anthony Messenger ... this book is intended to introduce a major group of Catholic authors worth considering. It provides a need in anthologies that has not yet been addressed.... I would buy this text if I were looking for some challenging reading and I would recommend it as a text on a course about Catholic authors. ― Xavier Review Caroline Gordon (1895–1981 ) was the author of nine novels, two short story collections, and two works of criticism. She was the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship and a winner of the O. Henry Award . Her Collected Stories was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year . Paul Horgan is the author of Lamy of Santa Fe (1975), Of America East and West (1985), Rome Eternal (1959), Saintmaker's Christmas Eve (1955), Songs After Lincoln (1965), and Toby and the Nighttime (1963). Flannery O'Connor was born in Savannah, Georgia, in 1925. When she died at the age of thirty-nine, America lost one of its most gifted writers at the height of her powers. O’Connor wrote two novels, Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960), and two story collections, A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1964). Her Complete Stories , published posthumously in 1972, won the National Book Award that year, and in a 2009 online poll it was voted as the best book to have won the award in the contest’s 60-year history. Her essays were published in Mystery and Manners (1969) and her letters in The Habit of Being (1979). In 1988 the Library of America published her Collected Works ; she was the first postwar writer to be so honored. O’Connor was educated at the Georgia State College for Women, studied writing at the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, and wrote much of Wise Blood at the Yaddo artists’ colony in upstate New York. She lived most of her adult life on her family’s ancestral farm, Andalusia, outside Milledgeville, Georgia. Ron Hansen 's novels include Desperadoes , The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford , Mariette in Ecstasy , and Atticus , a finalist for the National Book Award. He teaches at Santa Clara University in Northern California. Mary Gordon is the author of the novel Spending. Used Book in Good Condition