Customer Reviews

Nightwatchmen

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Nightwatchmen is a fine, strange and wonderful follow-up to Geronimo Rex. If you enjoy Barry Hannah's wacky, profane, compassionate world and can get your hands on this one, read it!

Nightwatchmen is an interesting case. While it is smart, funny, exciting, and even mysterious, it is also unbalanced and overpopulated. The book is sadly out of print, but the reason is somewhat obvious upon reading. It's simply not as good as some of his other work. From what I understand, he was paid to quickly write a follow-up to cash in on Geronimo Rex's success--a reasonable choice on the publisher's part. It, however, didn't sell very well and has never been reprinted.

The novel, set up in the format of tape recordings of multiple narrators requires the reader to care about many, perhaps too many, characters, some of whom are very interesting, and some of whom are somewhat hard to differentiate between. We even see the return of Harry Monroe. The book is a mystery surrounding violence on a university campus and in that sense it is actually very compelling. Hannah is as we already know him, unbelievable with words, and if you're into his style already you'll find something to enjoy here.

Despite being one of his lesser works, it is still a good read. If you're a huge Barry Hannah fan, go ahead and pick up a copy if you see a reasonable price. If not, you might be lucky like me and find a copy to borrow. Basically, if you get the chance, go for it.