Now considered a contemporary classic, Airships was honored by Esquire magazine with the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award. The twenty stories in this collection are a fresh, exuberant celebration of the new American South — a land of high school band contests, where good old boys from Vicksurg are reunited in Vietnam and petty nostalgia and the constant pain of disappointed love prevail. Airships is a striking demonstration of Barry Hannah's mature and original talent.
Airships
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Editorial Reviews
Review
"Barry Hannah is the best fiction writer to appear in the South since Flannery O'Connor." —Larry McMurtry
"Strong, original, tragic and funny in the same voice-a writer of violent honesty and power in the creative Southern tradition." —Alfred Kazin
"These stories are wonderful in the ways Mark Twain, Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor are wonderful when they are working the great vein of fierce and pitiless Southern comedy. The war stories in particular-joining, as they do for me, the clownish misery and colossal overkill of Vietnam to the American Civil War-are masterpieces of their kind. Hannah is more than just a new voice-he is half a dozen brilliant new voices." —Philip Roth
"Barry Hannah takes fiction by surprise-scenes, shocks, sounds and amazements: an explosive but meticulous originality." —Cynthia Ozick
"Talents as broad as this thrive in novels but rarely take to the more constricting form of the short story. Airships proves Barry Hannah an exception . . . artfully rounded-off vignettes jumping with humor and menace. . . . The stories bounce off and echo one another, giving the book an impact greater than the sum of its parts. . . . Most young Southern writers resent being compared to such past giants as Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. In embracing the gothic mode, Hannah has planted himself firmly on their turf. On the evidence of this book, their shadows are not stunting his growth." —Time
"Exhilarating! Hannah is afraid of nothing in experience. He runs to meet life and to transform it." —Denis Donoghue
"Barry Hannah's writing is raw and exhilarating, tortured, radiant, vicious, aggressive, funny, and streaked with rage, pain and bright poetic truth." —Philadelphia Inquirer
"Hannah's stories are powerful, and powerfully original." —John Gardner
"One reads Barry Hannah and is amazed! Airships places him in the very first rank of American literary artists, and leaves us breathless with the force of its feeling." —James Dickey
"Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent." —The Houston Chronicle
"Strong, original, tragic and funny in the same voice-a writer of violent honesty and power in the creative Southern tradition." —Alfred Kazin
"These stories are wonderful in the ways Mark Twain, Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor are wonderful when they are working the great vein of fierce and pitiless Southern comedy. The war stories in particular-joining, as they do for me, the clownish misery and colossal overkill of Vietnam to the American Civil War-are masterpieces of their kind. Hannah is more than just a new voice-he is half a dozen brilliant new voices." —Philip Roth
"Barry Hannah takes fiction by surprise-scenes, shocks, sounds and amazements: an explosive but meticulous originality." —Cynthia Ozick
"Talents as broad as this thrive in novels but rarely take to the more constricting form of the short story. Airships proves Barry Hannah an exception . . . artfully rounded-off vignettes jumping with humor and menace. . . . The stories bounce off and echo one another, giving the book an impact greater than the sum of its parts. . . . Most young Southern writers resent being compared to such past giants as Faulkner and Flannery O'Connor. In embracing the gothic mode, Hannah has planted himself firmly on their turf. On the evidence of this book, their shadows are not stunting his growth." —Time
"Exhilarating! Hannah is afraid of nothing in experience. He runs to meet life and to transform it." —Denis Donoghue
"Barry Hannah's writing is raw and exhilarating, tortured, radiant, vicious, aggressive, funny, and streaked with rage, pain and bright poetic truth." —Philadelphia Inquirer
"Hannah's stories are powerful, and powerfully original." —John Gardner
"One reads Barry Hannah and is amazed! Airships places him in the very first rank of American literary artists, and leaves us breathless with the force of its feeling." —James Dickey
"Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent." —The Houston Chronicle
From the Inside Flap
Winner of the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award
Now considered a contemporary classic, Airships was honored by Esquire magazine with the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award, and its author was welcomed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review as a "sensational new comic writer."
These twenty stories are a fresh, exuberant celebration of the new American South-a land of high school band contests, where good old boys from Vicksurg are reunited in Vietnam and petty nostalgia and the constant pain of disappointed love prevail. Airships is a striking demonstration of Barry Hannah's mature and original talent.
Includes:
"Water Liars"
"Love Too Long"
"Testimony of Pilot"
"Coming Close to Donna"
"Dragged Fighting from His Tomb"
"Quo Vadis, Smut?"
"Return to Return"
"Green Gets It"
"Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet"
"Our Secret Home"
"Eating Wife and Friends"
"All the Old Harkening Faces at the Rail"
"Knowing He Was Not My Kind Yet I Followed"
"That's True"
"Escape to Newark"
"Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room"
"Behold the Husband in his Perfect Agony"
"Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa"
"Deaf and Dumb"
"Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Heart"
Now considered a contemporary classic, Airships was honored by Esquire magazine with the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award, and its author was welcomed on the cover of The New York Times Book Review as a "sensational new comic writer."
These twenty stories are a fresh, exuberant celebration of the new American South-a land of high school band contests, where good old boys from Vicksurg are reunited in Vietnam and petty nostalgia and the constant pain of disappointed love prevail. Airships is a striking demonstration of Barry Hannah's mature and original talent.
Includes:
"Water Liars"
"Love Too Long"
"Testimony of Pilot"
"Coming Close to Donna"
"Dragged Fighting from His Tomb"
"Quo Vadis, Smut?"
"Return to Return"
"Green Gets It"
"Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet"
"Our Secret Home"
"Eating Wife and Friends"
"All the Old Harkening Faces at the Rail"
"Knowing He Was Not My Kind Yet I Followed"
"That's True"
"Escape to Newark"
"Pete Resists the Man of His Old Room"
"Behold the Husband in his Perfect Agony"
"Constant Pain in Tuscaloosa"
"Deaf and Dumb"
"Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Heart"
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By Crag Talent
Format:Paperback
I can always tell a great book by the fact I'm constantly thinking of bits I'd like to steal while reading. By that criteria, reading Airships was like being tossed in a jewlery store at night without any security around.
Airships is a collection of stories about war, sex, airplanes and horses. The usual, but done with incredible style and energy. I find that far too much modern short fiction is so polished and calculated it comes out as a dulled diamond (or more often polished stone), but Hannah's work is full of the rough, gritty, loose writing that draws you in like possessed jungle vines and then you get attacked by a Panther or something.
A few of the stories fall short and at least one didn't work at all for me, but I'll still give it a big ol' A+
Airships is a collection of stories about war, sex, airplanes and horses. The usual, but done with incredible style and energy. I find that far too much modern short fiction is so polished and calculated it comes out as a dulled diamond (or more often polished stone), but Hannah's work is full of the rough, gritty, loose writing that draws you in like possessed jungle vines and then you get attacked by a Panther or something.
A few of the stories fall short and at least one didn't work at all for me, but I'll still give it a big ol' A+
32 of 37 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A wonderful collection of stories that made me laugh outloud more than anything since the first time I read Celine. From one story to the next I was trully captivated. What sets him apart from other writers is his T.S. Eliot - like gift to come up with phrases that ring in your head like coins for years to come. No writer ever has been able to sum up a character in a single sentence like Hannah. Her husband was an intellectual in real estate... etc. The same is true in other volumes. Latouche (with metaphysical approaches named after him), is a good example.
I am not yet published but have written nine novels and hope my day will come soon. Hannah along with Richard Ford, Cormack McCarthy, Flaubert, Rilke, Celine, and Peter Handke, are my all-time favorites. Thanks for the inspiration!
20 of 24 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
This is one of the greatest short story collections/cycles in the history of the form. To hell with political correctness. When the smoke of overeducated ignorance clears from the last half of this century, Airships will be canonical.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ranks among the best American short fiction, ever.
This collection of Barry Hannah's work, while not as wide-ranging as his seminal work "Bats Out of Hell," is a must-have for anyone who is interested in enjoying short fiction that... Read more
Published 1 month ago by Eric Monson
4.0 out of 5 stars
Ok in places
Hard to get through, for the most part. Some stories are engaging and a total minderaser, but others drag on and on...
Published 2 months ago by Tinfoil Heroine
5.0 out of 5 stars
wonderful book
i love barry hannah and will probably buy more of his books at a future date. four more wors required
Published 4 months ago by bill
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of Barry's Best!
Barry Hannah will be sorely missed. I can only hope he left at least a manuscript or two among his papers that have yet to see the light of day. Read more
Published 13 months ago by A.J. Bateman
2.0 out of 5 stars
No more Hannah for me.
The stories were variable in quality, but one theme prevailed throughout: misogyny. Hannah only writes about women in the most limited terms: as sexual objects, as the tragically... Read more
Published 19 months ago by HRL
2.0 out of 5 stars
Flat
I enjoyed Hannah's style but none of the stories were particularly memorable. My favorite was the Civil War story, "Knowing He Was Not My Kind Yet I Followed. Read more
Published on May 9, 2011 by Brian Rosenberger
5.0 out of 5 stars
wild ride
Running through these stories feels like listing to the tracks off a really good album. Plenty of spicy, but pretty writing. Read more
Published on May 6, 2010 by Col. D
5.0 out of 5 stars
A New Approach to the American Story
Airships is a book that breaks apart expectations of what the short form can do. The language is so exacting and unique as to put this book in a league of its own. Read more
Published on April 16, 2010 by Charles Dodd White
4.0 out of 5 stars
good short story collection
If you're about to choose your first Barry Hannah book, buy this one to see what all of the fuss has been about all of these years.
Published on February 20, 2006 by Sam Curtis
4.0 out of 5 stars
all-in-all very good, yet something irked me . . .
I admired this collection a lot. It is filled with beautiful, mostly inventive writing that features a collective whoop of good humor. Read more
Published on July 7, 2004 by asphlex
