Ray [Hardcover]

Barry Hannah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 12, 1980

Nominated for the American Book Award, Ray is the bizarre, hilarious, and consistently adventurous story of a life on the edge. Dr. Ray--a womanizer, small-town drunk, vigilante, poet, adoring husband--is a man trying to make sense of life in the twentieth century. In flight from the death he dealt flying over Vietnam, Dr. Ray struggles with those bound to him by need, sickness, lunacy, by blood and by love.

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A shorthand epic of extraordinary power...a novel of brilliant particulars and dizzying juxtapositions.... Reading it is like turning in one's hand a sharply faceted crystal." -Newsweek

"Will you welcome, please, a sensational new American comic writer, one with poetry in his pulses and witty hot wires in his sentences?" -The New York Times Book Review

"Ray is a song....about the electrics, cool and hot, of being alive."--The Village Voice

"The best young fiction writer to appear in the South since Flannery O'Connor." -Larry McMurtry

"A masterwork of literary jazz.... An intense and readable joy." -Chicago Tribune

"Ray delights, provokes, shocks, amuses on every page. Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent." -Houston Chronicle

"Imagine a Southern De Maupassant entering a Diane Arbus photograph in order to invent fresh juxtapositions of the American language.... Barry Hannah takes fiction by surprise--scenes, shocks, sounds, and amazements: an explosive but meticulous originality." -Cynthia Ozick

"Barry Hannah's writing is raw and exhilarating, tortured, radiant, vicious, aggressive, funny, and streaked with rage, pain, and bright, poetic truth." -The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This novel hangs in the memory like a fishhook. It will haunt you long after you have finally put it down. Barry Hannah is a talent to reckon with, and I can only hope that Ray finds an audience it deserves." -Harry Crews, Washington Post Book World

"Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent. His style is exuberant, impressionistic, and highly compressed.... Reading this novel is not a passive experience. It delights, provokes, shocks, amuses on every page." -Houston Chronicle

"Ray is the funniest, weirdest, soul-happiest work of fiction by a genuinely young American author that I've read in a long while. You need a fresh lingo to do justice to this much magic, mystery, and hilarity." -Benjamin DeMott, The New York T...

--This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.

From the Inside Flap

Nominated for the American Book Award, Ray is the bizarre, hilarious, and consistently adventurous story of a life on the edge. Dr. Ray--a womanizer, small-town drunk, vigilante, poet, adoring husband--is a man trying to make sense of life in the twentieth century. In flight from the death he dealt flying over Vietnam, Dr. Ray struggles with those bound to him by need, sickness, lunacy, by blood and by love.

"A shorthand epic of extraordinary power...a novel of brilliant particulars and dizzying juxtapositions.... Reading it is like turning in one's hand a sharply faceted crystal."--Newsweek

"Will you welcome, please, a sensational new American comic writer, one with poetry in his pulses and witty hot wires in his sentences?"--The New York Times Book Review

"Ray is a song....about the electrics, cool and hot, of being alive."--The Village Voice

"The best young fiction writer to appear in the South since Flannery O'Connor."--Larry McMurtry

"A masterwork of literary jazz.... An intense and readable joy."--Chicago Tribune

"Ray delights, provokes, shocks, amuses on every page. Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent."--Houston Chronicle

"Imagine a Southern De Maupassant entering a Diane Arbus photograph in order to invent fresh juxtapositions of the American language.... Barry Hannah takes fiction by surprise--scenes, shocks, sounds, and amazements: an explosive but meticulous originality."--Cynthia Ozick

"Barry Hannah's writing is raw and exhilarating, tortured, radiant, vicious, aggressive, funny, and streaked with rage, pain, and bright, poetic truth."--The Philadelphia Inquirer

"This novel hangs in the memory like a fishhook. It will haunt you long after you have finally put it down. Barry Hannah is a talent to reckon with, and I can only hope that Ray finds an audience it deserves."--Harry Crews, Washington Post Book World

"Barry Hannah is an original, vital talent. His style is exuberant, impressionistic, and highly compressed.... Reading this novel is not a passive experience. It delights, provokes, shocks, amuses on every page."--Houston Chronicle

"Ray is the funniest, weirdest, soul-happiest work of fiction by a genuinely young American author that I've read in a long while. You need a fresh lingo to do justice to this much magic, mystery, and hilarity."--Benjamin DeMott, The New York Times Book Review

Barry Hannah was born in Clinton, Mississippi. His first novel, Geronimo Rex, was awarded the William Faulkner Prize and nominated for the National Book Award. A second novel, Nightwatchmen, was followed by Airships, a collection of stories, which won the Arnold Gingrich Short Fiction Award. Among Hannah's other books are The Tennis Handsome, Captain Maximus, Hey Jack!, Boomerang, Never Die, and Bats Out of Hell. His 1996 short story collection, High Lonesome, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. He currently holds a position as a writer-in-residence at the University of Mississippi and lives in Oxford with his wife, Susan. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 113 pages
• Publisher: Knopf; 1st edition (October 12, 1980)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0394509722
• ISBN-13: 978-0394509723
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #894,064 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Barry Hannah's Finest Hour, December 3, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Ray (Paperback)

Wow, this is really something. With only 113 pages, Barry Hannah's "Ray" from 1980 is hardly a novel (someone called it one long redneck poem), but it does not really matter, all I know is that it is wonderful. The story, if there is any, is about Dr. Ray who tries to make sense of his life in the South, tries to hold on to his wrecked marriage, while pursuing his desire, the vulnerable beautiful Sister (who reminds me of Faulkner's Caddy from "The Sound and the Fury"). The story is filled with grotesque O'Connor-like characters, a dark gallows humor, and an admirable sense of poetry and musical language. Barry Hannah is no doubt one of the most talented writers in America today, and although most of his other works are fiction on a very high level, none of them reach the heights where "Ray" soars as a lone eagle.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fasten your Seat Belt!, June 5, 2008

By 

Savvy-Suz "A Book holds a house of Gold." (Seattle) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Ray (Paperback)

You can't help but find the anger, comedy, raw sexuality, confused emotions, and healing a fresh voice in American Literature.
Nothing is even remotely sugar coated in this fast paced novel.

Ray lives on the edge with a fanatic frenzy which borders on lunacy while possessing the steely nerves of an ACE fighter pilot.

Fasten your seat belt!

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars a short, more bitter than sweet, good read, February 27, 2004

By 

Azizi (Portland, OR) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Ray (Paperback)

Short enough to be a great "filler" book when you're between novels, Ray by Barry Hannah ends up being worth the read. It is written almost like journal entries of a man with enough rotten memory to be spilling his guts to a much-needed psychologist. This book is like the average southern man's Bible, filled with the honest greusomeness of every day life in a backwoods town. Loose women, alcohol, love, hate, murder, and death.
Ray, a doctor and war survivor, recaps on his life which consists of mostly adultery and drinking, injected with a few small crisis moments that keep the book interesting.
Very very honest, well written, Barry Hannah couldn't have verbalized the events in this book better!