Long, Last, Happy: New and Collected Stories

This posthumous collection includes four new stories and shows why Hannah's regarded as one of the best. Hannah's wit is caustic, shot through with social commentary and gleefully interspersed with bursts of slapstick comedy. One of his best-known early stories, "Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Hurt," still holds up more than 30 years later, with the landlady in her dilapidated house, lying crumpled at the bottom of the stairs. Hannah easily links themes, characters, and places—particularly his longtime home of Oxford, Miss., and its flagship school, Ole Miss—without drawing unnecessary attention to connections. The new stories—"Fire Water," "Sick Soldier at Your Door," "Lastward, Deputy James," and "Out-tell the Teller"—can be read as a set of interlocking narratives, each presenting a different angle on a series of arson attacks on small churches. The subject matter may be serious, but Hannah never abandons his sly grin—just as he was able to shift, mid-story, between boyhood hijinks and the looming threat of Vietnam in "Testimony of Pilot." This collection reminds that Hannah, even in death, will always be "on the black and chrome Triumph, riding right into your face." (Dec.)