Southern Gothic
A collection of photographs inspired by a southern writer.
Southern Gothic is known as a sub-genre of literature and storytelling, typically set in the South, that employs the use of such elements as the grotesque, the violent, the supernatural, and the unorthodox juxtaposed with the normal, mediocre, and conventional to convey a sense of uncertainty while exploring issues of gender, race, and class. In the writings, descriptions of dilapidation, abandonment, and destruction are common as well as undertones of spiritual denouement or rejection. Flannery O'Connor considered a storyteller of the genre, was a native southerner. Born in Savannah, Georgia in 1925, O'Connor wrote in such a manner as to describe aspects of the South with many of the characters being grossly exaggerated or grotesque.
I was reunited with Flannery O'Connor in 2006 when I bought The Complete Stories at a thrift store in Port Charlotte, Florida. I paid $1.25 for the book, which was in pretty good condition, and read one story after the next. It is then that I became inspired by O'Connor's work and recognized a way of seeing the world that felt natural to me. I focused on the life surrounding me and began to weave O'Connor's themes and questioning of ethics and morality into the narrative of the series.
