nickdleblanc's review against another edition
4.0
The comparisons to Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor are spot-on. He does the perspective shift thing flawlessly and has plenty of the gritty uncomfortable details that make up the best/worst of Southern Gothic Lit. I like the dips into post-modernity and surrealism. I think they work really well under the Southern Gothic framework. He makes the south scary and discomfiting. You can smell the mud and see the snakes writhing in the dry grass behind the house.
I am surprised by how many positive reviews there are of this book, I would expect more people to be turned off by it. That is either a testament to BH's writing or to his reputation as a writer who is read mostly by other writers--a bias of readership. Not that I think the writing or storytelling is bad, it is just a lot to take in. I look forward to checking out a novel.
I am surprised by how many positive reviews there are of this book, I would expect more people to be turned off by it. That is either a testament to BH's writing or to his reputation as a writer who is read mostly by other writers--a bias of readership. Not that I think the writing or storytelling is bad, it is just a lot to take in. I look forward to checking out a novel.
katrinky's review against another edition
2.0
Not for me. The stories are gruesome, the (exclusively male) main characters murderous, the women superfluous and treated abhorrently, the violence graphic, the sex rape-reliant, the n-word usage rampant. Nope. I almost liked the quadberry the pilot/saxophone prodigy story, but who throws an M80 at a person? Ugh.
benwasson's review against another edition
3.0
a couple of good, lengthier stories are bogged down by vulgar and sometimes outright nonsensical filler material
bundy23's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars. It's never great when you have a short story collection and a lot of the stories have some very similar characters. It just makes things confusing and you have to wonder if this guy has enough imagination to create enough characters to fill a book. The racism was a bit much as well.
I think I'll call this Donald Ray Pollock does Bukowski but sadly it's doesn't even belong in the same universe as either of those guys.
I think I'll call this Donald Ray Pollock does Bukowski but sadly it's doesn't even belong in the same universe as either of those guys.
sasha_fletcher's review against another edition
5.0
not so big a fan of mother rooney unscrolls the hurt, and i may like bats out of hell better, but this book is pretty fucking incredible. weird having read the tennis handsome first and so seeing return to return and midnight i'm not famous yet on their own is weird although makes a deal of sense. really interesting to see how units can become a whole.
mpho3's review against another edition
3.0
Barry Hannah was considered a writer's writer. He was also a distinctly Southern writer who could by turns be comedic, philosophical or poignant--sometimes all at once. Many stories in this collection of 20 take unexpected turns, and I came upon many turns of phrases that really struck me.
Still, I honestly and truly only enjoyed four of the stories in their entirety. I could have done without the rest, even if impressed by some of them, like "Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Hurt." I felt acutely depressed while reading that one, but as it went on I felt other things and none those feelings were pleasant. By the end, Mother Rooney had turned into a grotesquery that made me glad I was finished with the book.
There was at least one story--"Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room"--that made me wonder what the hell I had just read. His characters are complexly pathetic and often surprisingly self-aware though that doesn't prevent them from being people you wouldn't want to meet in real life. Most of his male characters are psuedo-intellectuals or macho lugs and the women, when not entirely absent, are a bit despicable. He indulges in a casual usage of the n-word, which seems to me appropriate to the times and places in which the stories are set. Sex, when it happens, is sometimes rough, sometimes ridiculous. His settings are varied: small 20th-century Southern towns, the Civil War, a post-apocalyptic future, and Vietnam during America's war there.
The stories I did like quite a bit--each of them phenomenal--are: "Testimony of Pilot," "Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet," "Our Secret Home," and "Eating Wife and Friends." All four are worthy of five stars and as unlike one another as an apple, an orange, a camel, and a seashell. I think that's what made it worthwhile though, as I say, there were places I didn't want to linger, characters I did not want to know, and emotions I prefer keeping tamped down.
Still, I honestly and truly only enjoyed four of the stories in their entirety. I could have done without the rest, even if impressed by some of them, like "Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Hurt." I felt acutely depressed while reading that one, but as it went on I felt other things and none those feelings were pleasant. By the end, Mother Rooney had turned into a grotesquery that made me glad I was finished with the book.
There was at least one story--"Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room"--that made me wonder what the hell I had just read. His characters are complexly pathetic and often surprisingly self-aware though that doesn't prevent them from being people you wouldn't want to meet in real life. Most of his male characters are psuedo-intellectuals or macho lugs and the women, when not entirely absent, are a bit despicable. He indulges in a casual usage of the n-word, which seems to me appropriate to the times and places in which the stories are set. Sex, when it happens, is sometimes rough, sometimes ridiculous. His settings are varied: small 20th-century Southern towns, the Civil War, a post-apocalyptic future, and Vietnam during America's war there.
The stories I did like quite a bit--each of them phenomenal--are: "Testimony of Pilot," "Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet," "Our Secret Home," and "Eating Wife and Friends." All four are worthy of five stars and as unlike one another as an apple, an orange, a camel, and a seashell. I think that's what made it worthwhile though, as I say, there were places I didn't want to linger, characters I did not want to know, and emotions I prefer keeping tamped down.
donfoolery's review against another edition
5.0
I was just speechless after reading this collection. The breadth of these stories is incredible, everything from the historical to a bit of the fantastic. What's most impressive is Hannah's style, which brings to my mind the Filipino martial arts concept of "flow." His sentences, characters, and ideas in any given tale might seem strange, even outlandish, but they always serve the point of the story.