Ralph Lombreglia

I’ve just heard the sad news that Barry Han­nah has died at only 67 years old. He was a cease­lessly inven­tive and orig­i­nal fic­tion writer whose work is like noth­ing else in the world. His story col­lec­tion Air­ships (1978) is still one of the best ever pub­lished. If you don’t know his work, Air­ships and his short, inde­scrib­able novel Ray (1980), are good places to start. The Ten­nis Hand­some (1983) and Hey Jack! (1987) have a wild energy sim­i­lar to Ray but might be eas­ier for read­ers unac­cus­tomed to Hannah’s high-energy, ellip­ti­cal approach to writ­ing fic­tion. I hap­pen to be read­ing Yon­der Stands Your Orphan (2001) at the moment, and it’s every bit as good as the things he wrote in the 1980s and 1990s. I never met him, but I wish that I had. He can­not be imi­tated and there will never be another.