Review by Booklist Review
Marvelous as Hannah's novels are, in the long term his importance as a writer will probably be defined more by his short stories, a form to which he continues to robustly contribute. Two stories, in particular, in his latest collection showcase his special blend of poignancy and humor. "Snerd and Niggero" is the story of an affair in which the woman dies, leaving her lover and husband to become fast friends. It's achingly tender; it's also ribaldly hilarious--definitely a Hannah story. And so is "A Creature in the Bay of Saint Louis," in which a man remembers his boyhood struggle with the spectacular one that got away. Again, tender and funny. Hannah's distinctive style--at once rock tough and lovely--seems only to strengthen book after book. Fiction lovers, devour! (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1996)0871136686Brad Hooper
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Though set mostly in the Mississippi of the recent past, these 13 unsettling, masterfully crafted fictions bring to mind not only the work of great Southern short-story writers like Flannery O'Connor and Carson McCullers but, in their brutal candor and tragic masculinity, also echo voices as diverse as those of the New Englander Raymond Carver and the urbanite Charles Bukowski. Exploring themes of contorted sexuality, voyeurism, guilt, prejudice, identity, familial dysfunction, death, aging, improbable friendship, alcoholism, creativity and self-destruction, Hannah (Bats Out of Hell) evokes a dolorous and sometimes darkly comic South peopled by desperate losers, weathered survivors and unexpected innocents. Robert Snerd and Cornelius Niggero become fast friends on the death of Niggero's wife, a woman both were in loveand involvedwith. In "The Agony of T. Bandini," Tiger Bandini and the "lean black man" known only as Cruthers form a mysterious, lasting bond in the police drunk tank. "Drum" Dummond, a middle-aged, Christian dilettante in Paul Smith's writing class, befriends and encourages his troubled teacher but ultimately takes his own life ("Drummer Down)." In the briefest tale here, "A Creature in the Bay of St. Louis," a young boy out fishing hooks onto a sea monster. "It took place in no more than half a minute, I'd guess, but it had the lengthy rapture and terror of a whole tale." Just so, in these stories Hannah evokes an astonishing depth and range of emotion, as he economically blends notes of wistfulness and nostalgia into the dark, complex moods of his resonant, often disturbing tales. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Stories of America's underbelly from the author of the prize-winning Geronimo Rex. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Thirteen vivid, scabrous, and noisy stories from the Mississippi romantic whose earlier volumes (Airships, 1978; Bats Out of Hell, 1993) contained most of the essentials, and even some of the particulars, of the more recent pieces gathered here. The characters in Hannah's rowdy tales are almost always the same: Eccentric misfits or disaffected intellectuals who are afflicted by love and lust the way Flannery O'Connor's people are obsessed with God and religion. Booze and regrets are key elements in this latest collection, which differs from Hannah's previous work only in its nagging emphasis on midlife crisis. Even in the slightest stories (e.g., ``The Ice Storm'' and ``Ned Maxy, He Watching You''), the sense of wasted opportunity and of a persistent longing for a better life are almost always preternaturally strong. We seem to be hearing, with minimal narrative variations, the ongoing confession of a single self- castigating protagonist. The best tales include ``Get Some Young,'' in which a moody Korean War vet and his moodier wife are transformed by their encounter with a handsome young boy; ``Carriba,'' about a former journalist who tries to bring peace to a family traumatized by mass murders; and the affecting ``Drummer Down,'' which portrays a would-be-writer who killed himself and vibrates thereafter in the memory of his more ``successful'' friend. Most memorable of all is ``Uncle High Lonesome,'' the first-person story of a boy who simultaneously idolizes and despises the title character, a romantic hunter and boorish racist. It takes off onto an exhilarating higher level with the narrator's revelation that his uncle once murdered a man, and that the murder and its attendant guilt has become a kind of inheritance passed down through the generations. When Hannah's stories are really about something--other than the omnipresent comic-depressive mood that has long dominated his fiction--they can get under your skin and haunt you. Only fitfully, however, are such sparks struck here. (Author tour)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
