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Barry Hannah sobered up to write Yonder Stands Your
Orphan.
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The arc of Barry Hannah's writing career is both a cautionary tale and a rainbow to follow to find the pot of gold at the end. A Southern storyteller by birth and trade, his first books were full of rip-roaring characters and dialogue, with the occasional way-over-the-top episode thrown in to keep the reader wide-eyed.
Hannah's early work was exceptional, with Ray and Airships distilling down the eccentrics and excesses into short bursts of snap-crackle-pop. Turns out those pithy paragraphs and chapters were the result of simply being ripped, the writing distilled from a still.
The clarity of hindsight makes it likely that the conciseness was because the plot lines couldn't stay taut for long. Writing like a man trying to run with a belly full of beer, a short sprint was still possible, but painful, while marathons (aka big novels) were out of the question. The work in between was bloated and amorphous. Thankfully he's dry now, and roaring again.
In Yonder Stands Your Orphan he tilts at many of the white trash windmills that infiltrate scenes and characters found south of the Mason-Dixon. Fit and clear-headed, Hannah doesn't blindly traipse down a path of easy deduction, precisely what makes this book so much fun to read. He's wicked in his delights, twisting and greasing, bent on vengeance, high on the language.
Vengeance taken up a notch -- or four -- is Pain Management by Andrew Vachss. While most of his previous fiction focused on child abuse cases in New York City, this book evades that gut punch, as Burke (the main man in this series) moves to Oregon and undertakes more of a missing person chase than a grisly thriller.
Almost all of the descriptions and action are detailed via dialogue so, as a reader, it feels that you've been mesmerized by a long-winded, all-night conversation. Adopting a style much like Elmore Leonard, the difference with Vachss is that his voices are edged with grit and real danger, while Leonard has a light touch and a jesting undertone. Leonard spars with his stories; Vachss wallops them until there's no one left standing. Not what one would call light reading, it's definitely accomplished and fast-paced.
The third Fine Print subject also excels in terse, spare prose. If this were a film review, In Our Strange Gardens would be the Miramax release that would win the Oscar for best foreign movie. Retelling an episode played out as World War II nears its end in Europe and the Nazis feel the shadow of defeat upon them, the reader is reminded that in wartime people often die for pointless reasons. Or not.
Because of its short length and its absurdist Beckett-like qualities, this character sketch for a soldier's son reads much like a fable. Two cousins caught by the enemy are tossed into a huge hole with a handful of other resistance fighters. This makeshift troupe (as opposed to troop) is then ordered to decide which one of their rank must die.
Tensions obviously run high while food and other supplies run out. How does a group choose a sacrifice when they are all fighting on the side of right? With no escape or alternative in sight, the moment reveals itself ... ah, if I told you how it ended, it would ruin it.
The best takeaway here is that there is both a moral and a revelation since these events are being relayed to a recalcitrant son in testament of his father's bravery which he never knew. The second half of the book is the story told again in French, perhaps to pad out the page count, perhaps and probably to add the je ne sais quoi of the French bistros, countryside and love of black humor (never forget the whole Jerry Lewis cult thing).
Finally, Brown Harvest by Jay Russell is flat-out, semi-scandalous, adult merriment, which makes Fine Print's usual proximity to Savage Love apropos. Imagine if Encyclopedia Brown, noble "Boy Detective" grew up, left town, did some time in the joint for computer crime, and then came home to Ideaville to find that everything had gone to h-e-double-toothpicks. Sandy, his old flame, has "dated" every guy in town, his dad, the former police chief, was exposed as a mild pedophile and now sucks down straight gin while his mom has shacked up with Roach, former nemesis, present software CEO. So begins a roller-romper-coaster of wise and wide cracks, tongue in cheek (although I'm not saying what cheeks) riposte of the Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew meet David Lynch.
Think of Sam Spade in the modern day with a happy-to-see-you bulge in his pocket and a vendetta to settle, all of which collide to leave the town in ruins and our aging Boy Detective driving away, ruefully contemplating that maybe you can't go home again. It's raucous, it's randy, and it's as much titillating pleasure and parody as you're going to find between the covers ... of a book. ©
