Sam's review
Airships by Barry Hannah
Sam's review
rating:
bookshelves: shortfiction
recommended for: maniacs who love the South
status: Read in February, 2007
rating:
bookshelves: shortfiction
recommended for: maniacs who love the South
status: Read in February, 2007
It feels strange to give an explanation of why I love this book so much. I gave one of the stories, "Testimony of Pilot" to a group of kids I was teaching last winter, and I am afraid to say not a one of them found it the least bit interesting. In fact, they were mightily confused by it. We had been reading an O'Henry Prize collection, and I think they had gotten used to a very structured, rigorous kind of short story; the Hannah didn't really do if for them. But the reason I like Airships so much, I think, has something to do with the fact that these stories aren't at all what you're supposed to expect from "classic" short fiction. They're messy, they have ridiculous, over-the-top turns of phrase, and they often don't coalesce into any sort of moral or tidy meaning. Which is precisely why this book is one of the best examples of how the short story is a far more flexible medium than most people give it credit for. And why I'll teach this book to any s...more
