Uncommon Type by Tom Hanks: book review

Uncommon Type (2017) is a series of 17 short stories, all set in America.

The story, Three Exhausting Weeks – is fantastic, and the best in the collection. A frenetic A-type girl dates a lazy guy and virtually maps out his schedule of activities for the whole dating period. Written from the boy’s perspective, it’s a witty and comical, and in the end, I just had to love Anna. Atta girl!

I also liked A Special Weekend about 10-year-old Kenny Stahl in the spring of 1970. His father was head cook at the Blue Gum Restaurant until he finds a new job, a new home, and, ‘it turned out, a new family.’ His mother comes to visit, to take Kenny on a special weekend.

But, from that grand opening, the rest of the stories pale into the background. This is the actor’s first book and feels a bit like the early J.D. Salinger experimenting with his collection of short stories (like ‘A Perfect Day for Bananafish’ and ‘Nine Stories’) before he writes Catcher in the Rye (1951). The stories even have a 1950s feel to them: nostalgic and dreamy – and all based around youth and the young.

The short stories are not connected except for a typewriter. The typewriter theme in each story is either strongly revealing or mildly hinted at. Hanks wrote the stories on his typewriter, and not on his computer. There’s something nostalgic and simplistic about that.

The stories focus on friendships and families mostly – like watching the early American family sitcoms – ‘Leave it to Beaver’ and ‘Happy Days.’ Normal, everyday events are expressed in comic or melancholic ways.

It will be interesting to see how Hanks progresses with his writing career.

MARTINA NICOLLSis an international aid and development consultant, and the authorof:- Similar But Different in the Animal Kingdom(2017), The Shortness of Life: A Mongolian Lament (2015), Liberia’s Deadest Ends (2012), Bardot’s Comet (2011), Kashmir on a Knife-Edge (2010) and The Sudan Curse (2009).

Comments

Pir-E-Kamil - The Perfect Mentor by Umera Ahmed: book review

The Perfect Mentor pbuh (2011) is set in Lahore and Islamabad in Pakistan. The novel commences with Imama Mubeen in medical university. She wants to be an eye specialist. Her parents have arranged for her to marry her first cousin Asjad. Salar Sikander, her neighbour, is 18 years old with an IQ of 150+ and a photographic memory. He has long hair tied in a ponytail. He imbibes alcohol, treats women disrespectfully and is generally a “weird chap” and a rude, belligerent teenager. In the past three years he has tried to commit suicide three times. He tries again. Imama and her brother, Waseem, answer the servant’s call to help Salar. They stop the bleeding from his wrist and save his life. Imama and Asjad have been engaged for three years, because she wants to finish her studies first. Imama is really delaying her marriage to Asjad because she loves Jalal Ansar. She proposes to him and he says yes. But he knows his parents won’t agree, nor will Imama’s parents. That

Flaws in the Glass, a self-portrait by Patrick White: book review

The manuscript, Flaws in the Glass (1981), is Patrick Victor Martindale White’s autobiography. White, born in 1912 in England, migrated to Sydney, Australia, when he was six months old. For three years, at the age of 20, he studied French and German literature at King’s College at the University of Cambridge in England. Throughout his life, he published 12 novels. In 1957 he won the inaugural Miles Franklin Literary Award for Voss, published in 1956. In 1961, Riders in the Chariot became a best-seller, winning the Miles Franklin Literary Award. In 1973, he was the first Australian author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature for The Eye of the Storm, despite many critics describing his works as ‘un-Australian’ and himself as ‘Australia’s most unreadable novelist.’ In 1979, The Twyborn Affair was short-listed for the Booker Prize, but he withdrew it from the competition to give younger writers the opportunity to win the award. His autobiography, Flaws in the Glass

The Beggars' Strike by Aminata Sow Fall: book review

The Beggar’sStrike (1979 in French and 1981 in English) is set in an unstated country in West Africa in a city known only as The Capital. Undoubtedly, Senegalese author Sow Fall writes of her own experiences. It was also encapsulated in the 2000 film, Battu , directed by Cheick Oumar Sissoko from Mali. Mour Ndiaye is the Director of the Department of Public Health and Hygiene, with the opportunity of a distinguished and coveted promotion to Vice-President of the Republic. Tourism has declined and the government blames the local beggars in The Capital. Ndiaye must rid the streets of beggars, according to a decree from the Minister. Ndiaye instructs his department to carry out weekly raids. One of the raids leads to the death of lame beggar, Madiabel, who ran into an oncoming vehicle as he tried to escape, leaving two wives and eight children. Soon after, another raid resulted in the death of the old well-loved, comic beggar Papa Gorgui Diop. Enough is enou

FEAST OR FAMINE

Search This Blog