Yonder: The Flannery Effect

The public has been fascinated by Flannery O’Connor since she first appeared on the literary scene, and her life and work have inspired a multitude of younger writers such as humorist Roy Blount Jr. and filmmaker Ethan Hawke. Poet Robert Lowell claimed that O’Connor was a saint, and the gift shop at Andalusia played up this idea after the farm opened as a museum in 2003. Visitors in the early 2000s could even purchase bottles of dirt and water from the property—modern-day relics for O’Connor’s disciples.