God may have said nyet, but the critics sounded yes to Michener graduate James Hannaham‘s widely praised comic novel, God Says No, which came out this summer from McSweeney’s.

Our own Cindy Widner had this to say: “It is the impressive discipline of first-time novelist James Hannaham’s flat prose – which displays an almost anti-writerly lack of ornament, devoid of extensive contemplation – that allows such a thorough inhabitation of his character.” That character would be Gary Gray, an overweight, closeted gay man who “believes in Disney World and Jesus with equal fervor, and he very much wants to be part of the America for which the Sunshine State is a Technicolor stand-in: upstanding, religious, family-oriented, milquetoast, and middling; he wants to live in the straight world, in every sense.”

Hannaham, a funny and elegant raconteur, reads at BookPeople tomorrow night (9/16) at 7pm.

This article appears in September 11 • 2009.

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A graduate of the Michener Center for Writers at the University of Texas, Kimberley has written about film, books, and pop culture for The Austin Chronicle since 2000. She was named Editor of the Chronicle in 2016; she previously served as the paper’s Managing Editor, Screens Editor, Books Editor, and proofreader. Her work has been awarded by the Association of Alternative Newsmedia for excellence in arts criticism, team reporting, and special section (Best of Austin). The Austin Alliance for Women...