A Good Man Is Hard To Find, by Flannery O'Connor
published 1955 - read 2004

Splendidly bleak tales of Southern eccentrics, bigots, cranks and devils.  I've been told that O'Connor thought of her work as godly and uplifting; I can't exactly see how, but then I sort of can.  In any case, she has a great economy of words and manages to paint surprisingly vivid, subtle, and nuanced portraits of her characters, no mean feat considering how easy it would be to render them as simple caricatures.  Highly recommended.

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