O'Connor, Flannery (Mary Flannery O'Connor), 1925-64, American author, b. Savannah, Ga., grad. Women's College of Georgia (A.B., 1945), Iowa State Univ. (M.F.A., 1947). As a writer, O'Connor is highly regarded for her bizarre imagination, uncompromising moral vision, and superb literary style. Combining the grotesque and the gothic and touched by mordant wit, her fiction treats 20th-century Southern life in terms of stark, brutal comedy and violent tragedy. Her characters, although often deformed in both body and spirit, are impelled toward redemption. All of O'Connor's fiction reflects her strong Roman Catholic faith. Wise Blood (1952) and The Violent Bear It Away (1960) are novels focusing on religious fanaticism; A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965) are short-story collections. Her Collected Stories was published in 1971. O'Connor had a form of lupus and spent the last ten years of her life as an invalid, writing and raising peacocks on her mother's farm near Milledgeville, Ga.

(born March 25, 1925, Savannah, Ga., U.S.—died Aug. 3, 1964, Milledgeville, Ga.) U.S. writer. She spent most of her life on her mother's farm in Milledgeville, Ga. A devout Roman Catholic, she usually set her works in the rural South and often examined the relationship between the individual and God by putting her characters in grotesque and extreme situations. Her first novel, Wise Blood (1952), combines a keen ear for common speech, a caustic religious imagination, and a flair for the absurd that characterized all of her work. With the story collections A Good Man Is Hard to Find (1955) and Everything That Rises Must Converge (1965), she was acclaimed as a master of the form. Her other work of fiction was the novel The Violent Bear It Away (1960). Long crippled by lupus, she died at age 39. The Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction is the preeminent American award of its kind.

Learn more about O'Connor, (Mary) Flannery with a free trial on Britannica.com.

Flannery is a bridge convention using an 2 opening bid to show a hand of minimal opening bid strength (11-15 high card points) with exactly four spades and five (or sometimes six) hearts. It is invented by American player William Flannery.

This convention was introduced because of the awkwardness of describing such holding, especially with four-card major systems. For example, with the hand , if the bidding starts 1-1NT (denying four spades), the opener cannot rebid 2, as it would be a reverse bid showing a stronger hand, 2 shows a six-card suit, and 2 of a minor would show 4 or at least good 3 cards. Thus, the opener cannot safely seek for a 5-3 fit in hearts. Five-card major openers are somewhat better placed, because 1NT denies both 3 hearts and 4 spades, so opener may safely pass. However, this convention is also useful when playing five-card majors in conjunctions with forcing notrump, to prevent opener from having to respond in a nonsuit after 1 – 1 Notrump when not strong enough to reverse.

Responses

Responder has only 2NT as the forcing bid, and all other bids are natural. The bidding proceeds as follows:

• Pass, 2, 2, 3 – to play
• 3NT, 4, 4 – to play
• 3, 3 – invitational
• 2NT – forcing bid. The opener describes his hand more precisely:
• 3, 3 – 3 cards in the bid suit (i.e. 4=5=1=3 and 4=5=3=1 distribution)
• 3 – 4=5=2=2, 11-13 points
• 3 – 4=5=2=2, 14-15 points with weak minor-suit doubletons
• 3NT – 4=5=2=2, 14-15 points, but good minor-suit doubletons
• 4, 4 – 4 cards in the bid suit (i.e. 4=5=0=4 and 4=5=4=0 distribution)
• 4 - a 6-card heart suit, for those who play this variant

Anti-Flannery

"Anti-Flannery" is a variation used in systems which use canapé approach, where shorter suit is opened first. It is used in some variations of Blue Club and Lancia systems. With canapé in effect, hands with 4=5 in majors are naturally opened 1 with 2 rebid, however, hands with 5 spades and 4 hearts are the ones that present a problem. So, the bid of 2 shows 5 spades and 4 hearts. The further development is similar to the basic Flannery.

External links

• BridgeGuys convention description