High Lonesome is a darkly comic, fiercely tragic, and strikingly original odyssey into American life. This collection by the author of Airships and Bats Out of Hell explores lost moments in time with intensity, emotion, and an eye to the past. In "Uncle High Lonesome," a young man recalls his Uncle Peter, whose even temper was marred only by his drinking binges, which would unleash moments of rage hinting at his much deeper distress. Fishing is transformed into a life-altering, almost mystical event in "A Creature in the Bay of St. Louis," when a huge fish caught on a line threatens to pull a young boy, and his entire world with him, underwater and out to sea. And in "Snerd and Niggero," a deep friendship between two men is inspired by the loss of a woman they both loved, a woman who was mistress to one and wife to the other. Viewed through memory and time's distance, Hannah's characters are brightly illuminated figures from a lost time, whose occassionally bleak lives are still uncommonly true.
Wild and weird and somehow in that wildness and weirdness, true. I feel like I should have been reading Barry Hannah long before now. I feel like I’ll be making up for that from now on.
This just kept building and two of the last three stories, “The Ice Storm” and “Uncle High Lonesome,” together with “Repulsed,” are my votes for the best.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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5 February, 2012:
Finished reading
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5 February, 2012:
Reviewed