3 out of 4 stars
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It was the title of this book that grabbed my attention—A Second, Less Capable, Head and Other Rogue Stories. I’m usually not a big fan of short stories, but I do enjoy a good rogue tale once in a while, and author James Hanna did not disappointment me.
This book is a collection of nineteen intriguing stories. A few of them could be described as science fiction, but most of them are drawn from Hanna’s experience wandering the Australian Outback and working in the criminal justice system as a counselor and probation officer.
A recurring character in several stories is Tom Hemmings. We see him in The Outback and The Dress as a draft dodger in Australia, but he also shows up in a few of the rogue stories as a probation officer for stalkers and wife beaters. Hemmings is a thread that loosely ties some of the stories together, but each story easily stands on its own, so you don’t lose any part of the plot by only reading one or two.
Of the rogue stories, my favorite is Exposed. It’s about Sylvester, an aging performance artist who loses his muse when one of his greatest performances is harshly criticized. Telling you the nature of his art would give too much away. Let’s just say you probably wouldn’t invite him to perform at your next family reunion. But Hanna does a masterful job of portraying Sylvester as being just like any other artist who might find his creative spirit crushed by just one critic. As both a writer and a musician, I felt an unwelcome sympathy for Sylvester. Despite his questionable art, he is just like all other artists who fear the day when their greatest works might be exposed as insignificant.
Hanna does something similar with his other rogues. He's telling stories about criminals with serious mental and moral deficiencies, but each character is a hero in his or her own mind. They are despicable in many ways, but ultimately they are suffering from their delusions and haunted by their pasts. There aren’t many writers who can pull off this trick of making a reader feel sympathy for a criminal, but Hanna is one of them. He doesn’t do it by disregarding their crimes. He does it by showing us their motives—and a glimpse of their humanity.
Of the entire collection, my favorite stories are the one’s with a sci-fi slant. In A Second, Less Capable, Head, we meet Virgil Ploughright, a plumber and Tea Party activist who wakes up one day with a second head growing out of his neck. A trip to the doctor reveals that he is not the only person in the country experiencing this odd condition. And much to his dismay, the government has made it illegal to remove the extra head while the nation debates the issue of the sanctity of life.
In The Guest, a spaceship filled with women is rescued from an asteroid belt and brought to Earth. The women are only six inches tall and don’t speak English. So the government sets up an adoption program to give ordinary citizens a chance to teach these women the language. Henry Hokum adopts one at the insistence of his ten-year-old daughter and soon realizes he’s in over his head.
In Fruits, Molly Groot, a middle-aged librarian, meets Jeb Judson on an online dating service and agrees to marry him. When she meets him in person, she learns that he is working on a government project to breed a race of mutants who will one day serve as common laborers, soldiers, and politicians.
These three stories are reminiscent of one of my favorite old television shows—The Twilight Zone. Each one combines a little bit of philosophy with an unlikely story. Each one also has an intriguing twist at the end. But what I loved the most were the characters. They are a bit odd—as they would have to be to get themselves involved in these odd situations. You might even say they are a little comical. But they are also all too real. I am sure that I know a few people who are just like Virgil, Henry, Molly, and Jeb. I might not be friends with them, but I know them. Though I enjoyed the rogue tales, I wish there were more of these sci-fi stories in the book.
In all of the stories, I was impressed by the way Hanna shows us both the good and the bad qualities in his characters in just a few pages. I was even more pleased that he shows these qualities through dialogue and actions, rather than just writing a general description as part of the narrative. As a reader, I find it much more satisfying to discover a character on my own rather than being told who and what they are by the narrator.
Hanna is very good at writing descriptions that stand out. I hesitate to share some of the best examples because of the somewhat crude language involved (see Hunter’s Moon). But one striking image is at the beginning of The Break. It’s a story about two prison guards searching for escaped convicts in a forest during winter. They compare their search to hunting rabbits, giving you an idea that they're willing to shoot first and ask questions later. In the first paragraph, Hanna describes the “skeletal boughs of the sycamore trees” by saying, “…these bones were still heavy with glittering ice. They tinkled like jewelry with each swell of wind…” I could just see it! The forest becomes a boneyard and the trees are skeletons showing off their bracelets of ice. That’s an image!
As much as I loved the stories, there were a few problems with the book. There were more than ten spelling and punctuation errors and some problems with style and consistency. Hanna uses an overabundance of semicolons, colons, and dashes. I’m not convinced that he uses them correctly, but even if he does, the flow of the text suffers for it. It’s like driving down a scenic road with six-inch speed bumps every thirty feet. The view is still lovely, but the trip is less enjoyable than it could have been. Hanna also makes several mistakes involving the use of italics and quotation marks in titles, quotes, place names, and dialogue. They don’t detract from the storyline, but they are distractions for people like me who recognize them.
So I rate this book 3 out of 4 stars. The characters, are wonderful, the descriptions are creative, and each plot is well crafted. But I saw too many mechanical and style mistakes to give a four-star rating. Those who are sensitive to obscenities should take note that there are several sexual references in the book and crude language. One of the stories, Another Will Take Your Place, is about a rape. That said, I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys a visit to The Twilight Zone and an occasional view of the rogue life.
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A Second, Less Capable Head
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