Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Barry Hannah, 1942-2010

The Barry Hannah LINKcat Status Report
Link to March 3 New York Times obituary, "Barry Hannah, Darkly Comic Writer, Dies at 67.

Excerpt: Hannah's first novel, ''Geronimo Rex,'' was published in 1972. It received the William Faulkner prize for writing and was nominated for a National Book Award. His 1996 short story collection, ''High Lonesome,'' was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.

Novelist and Mississippi native Richard Ford called Hannah ''a shooting star.''

''Barry could somehow make the English sentence generous and unpredictable, yet still make wonderful sense, which for readers is thrilling,'' Ford said from his home in Maine. ''You never knew the source of the next word. But he seemed to command the short story form and the novel form and make those forms up newly for himself.''

Longtime friend Malcolm White, the director of the
Mississippi Arts Commission, said Hannah ''loved words, fishing, his family and going fast.''

''Barry was Mississippi's irreverent poet of the dark side, our rebellious, misfit uncle of the nightlife, the voice of the unrehearsed and the unapologetic outburst in corner of the room,'' White said Monday.

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