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Barry Hannah is a wild man. Although he has given up the alcohol that fueled some of
his wilder escapades (including an episode where, when confronted with his car filling
with water during a rainstorm, he riddled the floorboard with bullets to drain it), the
fire still burns. As does his writing, demonstrated by his latest offering, YONDER STANDS
YOUR ORPHAN.
The title comes from a line in Bob Dylan's classic "It's All Over Now, Baby
Blue." It is not simply borrowed for effect, however; the title is definitely
appropriate for at least part of the subject matter of the book, which deals with the mad
and absurd goings on around Eagle Lake in Mississippi. Hannah's style is reminiscent of
Pynchon and Vonnegut, yet he is by no means imitative of or slavish to either of those
gentlemen. No, Hannah's voice is uniquely his own. Reading Hannah is like listening to the
last survivor of Lafitte's crew --- deranged by age, rum, and fever --- divulge the
location of the lost treasure: He repeats himself, rambles, goes off on tangents
unexpectedly, but his telling of the tale is so rich, and the promises so rewarding, that
one can't help but continue with the story, refusing interruption. In my particular case,
I resisted interruption even when it would have been in my best interest to stop. I
hopelessly lost track of who the majority of the characters were within the first 75 pages
of the book, having only the vaguest idea of who each of them were. I was so caught up in
Hannah's turn of phrase and use of language, for purposes both humorous and horrific, that
I could not stop reading. I felt like a salmon heading downstream with a strong current; I
couldn't control where I was going and didn't recognize where I was but knew I would
eventually get where I wanted to go.
YONDER STANDS YOUR ORPHAN centers on a camp for indigent orphans near Eagle Lake. When two
runaways from the camp discover a car with two bodies in the trunk, a season of madness
descends upon the area. The focus of the madness and the violence that accompanies it is
Man Mortimer, a one-man vice operation who controls all of the illicit action in the
not-inconsiderable area surrounding Eagle Lake. And Mortimer's main interest is
prostitution, which is carried out by willing hookers from mobile automobiles and SUVs ---
the better to keep the law, such as it is in that area, at bay.
Mortimer's penchant for violence, never far from the surface, is given full rant when he
discovers that the only woman he has ever cared for has callously betrayed him. Using his
fascination with knives as a vehicle for revenge, his passions and his anger escalate into
a spree that effects all whom he may encounter. The sheriff is a young, almost-universally
hated Northerner whose main interests lie in the local theater and Melanie Wooten, a widow
approaching 70; he is of next to no use in opposing Mortimer. The only individuals in
Mortimer's way are a crazed, vaguely religious saxophonist, an ex-biker turned preacher, a
Vietnam veteran whose wife is slowly but inexorably dying of cancer, and an alcoholic lay
preacher. If Mortimer goes down, however, he is not going alone.
YONDER STANDS YOUR ORPHAN is maddening, confusing, funny and horrific, often all within
the same sentence. Readers are advised to begin a "scorecard" to list each
character upon commencing the book in order to increase their enjoyment of the novel. Love
of language, however, will be enough to keep most going.
--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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