Barry Hannah – författare

Geronimo Rex, Barry Hannah's brilliant first novel, which was nominated for the National Book Award, is full of the rare verve and flawless turns of phrase that have defined his status as an American master. Roiling with love and torment, lunacy and desire, hilarity and tenderness, Geronimo Rex is the bildungsroman of an unlikely hero. Reared in gloomy Dream of Pines, Louisiana, whose pines have long since yielded to paper mills, Harry Monroe is ready to take on the world. Inspired by the great Geronimo's heroic rampage through the Old West, Harry puts on knee boots and a scarf and voyages out into the swamp of adolescence in the South of the 1950s and '60s. Along the way he is attacked by an unruly peacock; discovers women, rock 'n' roll, and jazz; and stalks a pervert white supremacist who fancies himself the next Henry Miller.

In the eight short stories that comprise Captain Maximus, Barry Hannah follows perfunctory lives and eccentrics on the fringes of society, exploring how, from their embellished personas to the trivial rigmarole they seek to escape, they all fall short of finding meaning in life. With just the turn of a page, Hannah’s narrators can swing from personable talk akin to storytelling around a campfire, with the occasional flourish of dark humour, to brooding reflections on desire and meaning and to unsettling vitriol and moral depravity. This collection features some of Hannah’s finest work, from the fever dream “Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter” to the product of a collaboration with Robert Altman “Power and Light,” and demonstrates Hannah’s ability to take readers on a ride through the mud of the American male psyche with acerbic prose — mixed with hints of Faulkner and Hemingway — and a sly grin on his face. Written during a tumultuous period in the author’s life, Captain Maximus captures the outrageous wit and thematic complexity of Hannah’s writing, which garnered him an enduring cult following and recognition as one of the best contemporary writers to come from the American South.

Between 1972 and 2001, Barry Hannah (1942-2010) published eight novels and four collections of short stories. A master of short fiction, Hannah is considered by many to be one of the most important writers of modern American literature. His writing is often praised more for its unflinching use of language, rich metaphors, and tragically damaged characters than for plot. ""I am doomed to be a more lengthy fragmentist,"" he once claimed. ""In my thoughts, I don't ever come on to plot in a straightforward way.""Conversations with Barry Hannah collects interviews published between 1980 and 2010. Within them Hannah engages interviewers in discussions on war and violence, masculinity, religious faith, abandoned and unfinished writing projects, the modern South and his time spent away from it, the South's obsession with defeat, the value of teaching writing, and post-Faulknerian literature. Despite his rejection of the label ""southern writer,"" Hannah's work has often been compared to that of fellow Mississippian William Faulkner, particularly for each author's use of dark humor and the Southern Gothic tradition in their work. Notwithstanding these comparisons, Hannah's voice is distinctly and undeniably his own, a linguistic tour de force.