In this week’s issue, Katharine Smith reviews Barry Hannah‘s posthumous short story collection, Long, Last, Happy, which puts us in mind of the time the Chronicle made a pilgrimage to see Hannah in his home state of Mississippi.
A signature voice in Southern literature (his books included Airships, Bat Out of Hell, and Never Die), Hannah passed away in March of this year, but back in 2003, the Chronicle’s then-Books editor Shawn Badgley traveled to Oxford, Miss. to interview him. Most memorably, Hannah told him, “Fuck Faulkner’s shadow” … while on a walk to the house of William Faulkner, a fellow Oxfordian and obvious (but not overwhelming) influence.
It’s a terrific read. You can check it out here.
This article appears in December 3 • 2010.
