I’ve just heard the sad news that Barry Hannah has died at only 67 years of age. 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.