BARRY HANNAH — AIRSHIPS

Image: author photo

This story collection — and really much of Barry Hannah’s oeuvre, such as I’ve read — represents definitive work about the awful hangover of American Southernness. As a Yankee, I probably don’t fully get it. But I’ve long found his characters and their voices indelible and intense. I used to see photos of Mr. Hannah sometimes and think he was Asian. I never took too close a look or bothered to read up the guy. Maybe I was just hoping he was Asian, or part-Asian. He’s a Southern white male. His prose makes profligate use of the n-word. The use is casual… and also completely authentic to his characters… and still, to me, indefensible. I felt deflated to encounter the word so many times, embedded in such white-hot original prose, among so many characters I loved and hated and found interesting.