Author Spotlight
A Little More Hannah: A remembrance by a former student, plus a BH essay you may never have seen before
In December 2005, my friend Adam got obsessed with Jenny Lewis and bought every magazine at the Borders with her face on the cover, which was a LOT of them. Among the plenitude of mostly miserable and intellect-proof “music magazines,” which I soon found myself flipping through in mild amusement/dismay, one thing caught my eye: an essay on Beckett and Christianity by Barry Hannah in a magazine called Paste, which I had never heard of before. I was so enraptured with this essay that I made it my business to track their books editor down, and indeed my gmail records reflect that by 01/05/06 I was bugging Charles McNair, author of the novel Land O’ Goshen and editor of the Paste books page, for attention and work. Charles has been a good friend and occasional employer of mine ever since, and it all stems from our shared love of Barry Hannah. As it turns out, Charles studied with Hannah at the MFA program in Tuscaloosa, back when–but let me not tell his story for him. He has a very fine remembrance of his old teacher up at the Paste site, which you should go read. And also, Paste has gone ahead and made available Hannah’s essay, “The Maddening Protagonist.”
I’ve studied the mystic poet William Blake a good long while. Blake’s prophetic books—driven by a man who saw angels in trees and advocated naked free love—I can’t read except as inspired lunacy, which would also hold true for other denominational texts discounted by every theological archaeologist without rabid wolves running around his head. But where do you stop the discounting? We’re only cursing the darkness from the position of our own predilections when it comes to religion and, even more difficult, faith.
For simple truthful laymen, the Holy Bible is inconsistent to an almost sickening degree, and we mainly just let it pass. Faulkner once commented about one of his male characters who, “like most men, never thought about God one way or another.” Through the ages there seems a redundancy of the outright mad clutching Bibles to their chests and spouting scripture incoherently as they proceed from one asylum to the next.
Tags: Barry Hannah, Charles McNair
I saw Sam Lipsyte read the other day. He was asked who the funniest American writers were and his answer was “Well, we just lost one of the funniest in Barry Hannah.”
I saw Sam Lipsyte read the other day. He was asked who the funniest American writers were and his answer was “Well, we just lost one of the funniest in Barry Hannah.”
Being one of the others, Sam would know.
Being one of the others, Sam would know.
Nice finds!
Nice finds!
thanks justin. never enough barry. i went looking for this essay that was written on him in an issue of oxford american a little while back but stumbled upon an interview they have up and the story, “the spy of loog root.” [http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2010/mar/10/spy-loog-root/] for the uninitiated, here’s a taste from his collection ‘bats out of hell.’
*here’s the one i was originally looking for, [http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2009/sep/01/among-mutinous-helium-bursts-around-saturn-barry-h/]
thanks justin. never enough barry. i went looking for this essay that was written on him in an issue of oxford american a little while back but stumbled upon an interview they have up and the story, “the spy of loog root.” [http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2010/mar/10/spy-loog-root/] for the uninitiated, here’s a taste from his collection ‘bats out of hell.’
*here’s the one i was originally looking for, [http://www.oxfordamerican.org/articles/2009/sep/01/among-mutinous-helium-bursts-around-saturn-barry-h/]
going to read the entire article in a moment. This is one hell of a good piece of writing so I suspect that I’ll be weeping and unable to comment on it as a whole. I am glad Paste is doing such a thing, I’ve recently gotten my second sub to it after abandoning it, so good, my money is being spent wisely.
going to read the entire article in a moment. This is one hell of a good piece of writing so I suspect that I’ll be weeping and unable to comment on it as a whole. I am glad Paste is doing such a thing, I’ve recently gotten my second sub to it after abandoning it, so good, my money is being spent wisely.
Yeah, Paste has had some ups & downs, and major cashflow problems like all magazines, but they’re one of the good guys, and worth sticking by. Charles’s books section alone is worth the price of admission. I wish they’d give Charles twice, three times as much space, but what he manages to cram into that 2-page spread every month is always impressive, and for many worthy indie authors it winds up being the biggest national-notice that they get. I subscribe too, btw. I think they made a good decision in switching their FREE CD that used to come with every issue to a web page of FREE DOWNLOADS exclusive for buyers/subscribers. It’s much more efficient that way, and I’m sure has cut their production costs way down.
Yeah, Paste has had some ups & downs, and major cashflow problems like all magazines, but they’re one of the good guys, and worth sticking by. Charles’s books section alone is worth the price of admission. I wish they’d give Charles twice, three times as much space, but what he manages to cram into that 2-page spread every month is always impressive, and for many worthy indie authors it winds up being the biggest national-notice that they get. I subscribe too, btw. I think they made a good decision in switching their FREE CD that used to come with every issue to a web page of FREE DOWNLOADS exclusive for buyers/subscribers. It’s much more efficient that way, and I’m sure has cut their production costs way down.
Thanks man. Printed it out for my plane ride. Looking forward to both pieces…
Thanks man. Printed it out for my plane ride. Looking forward to both pieces…
Good work. Enjoyed this.
Good work. Enjoyed this.
Who knew that Paste even had a book section? (By that I mean I had no clue because It never looked like a magazine I would want to read…) I will henceforth read Paste’s book section while standing in line at a store where it is sold.
Who knew that Paste even had a book section? (By that I mean I had no clue because It never looked like a magazine I would want to read…) I will henceforth read Paste’s book section while standing in line at a store where it is sold.
As Justin noted, Paste really does have a great book review section (I should probably note here that they’ve included on of my own reviews in the past), both fiction and non-fiction, and usually include some other literary related tidbit somewhere else in the magazine.
As Justin noted, Paste really does have a great book review section (I should probably note here that they’ve included on of my own reviews in the past), both fiction and non-fiction, and usually include some other literary related tidbit somewhere else in the magazine.