Imagining
being forced at gunpoint to nominate someone for the title of
Ultimate Forgotten Crime Writer, only one name comes to mind:
Flannery O'Connor.
“You
ignorant cretin,” the literary gunsel likely would snarl, waving
his delicately engraved Mauser pocket pistol in my face as other
literati circled around, agape. My attacker would add, voice
rising to include the onlookers, “How did you get in here, anyway?
Surely you weren't invited?”
“Yeah,”
a voice would thunder from within the gathering herd, “Forgotten,
hell! I'm focusing my seminar this term on her work.” A soprano
shrills above the swelling rumble of crisply sophisticated
mutterings: “Crime? How dare you disparage Miss O'Connor as a genre
writer! Shame on you.” Another voice, a baritone: “Get the
bricks! Let's stone this dumb bastard!”
