Long, Last, Happy
{{Short description|Short story collection}}
{{Infobox book
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| name = Long, Last, Happy
| image = File:Long, Last, Happy.jpg
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| caption = First edition
| author = Barry Hannah
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| cover_artist = Charles Rue Woods
| country = United States
| language = English
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| publisher = Grove Press
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| pub_date = 2010
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| pages = 459
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Long, Last, Happy: New and Selected Stories is a 2010 collection of short stories by the American author Barry Hannah. It includes a selection of stories from his four earlier collections, Airships (1978), Captain Maximus (1985), Bats Out of Hell (1993), and High Lonesome (1996), along with one early work never published before in volume form and four new stories. It was published in December 2010 by Grove Press, after Hannah's death in March earlier that year.
Contents
The collection contains 31 stories in total. No editor is credited, and no introduction is provided. "Trek", which had never been published in volume form, first appeared in The Arrowhead, a student publication at Mississippi College, in 1964. Many of the other stories appeared in periodicals before being published in Hannah's earlier collections.
The four new stories, according to the publisher, are from "the final manuscripts Hannah left behind". A starred review in Publishers Weekly states that the new stories "can be read as a set of interlocking narratives, each presenting a different angle on a series of arson attacks on small churches.""[https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-8021-1968-1 Long, Last, Happy: New and Collected Stories]". Publishers Weekly, 4 October 2010.
= 1964-1978: ''Airships'' and Before =
- Trek
- Water Liars
- Love Too Long
- Testimony of Pilot
- Coming Close to Donna
- Dragged Fighting from His Tomb
- Midnight and I'm Not Famous Yet
- Knowing He Was Not My Kind Yet I Followed
- Behold the Husband in His Perfect Agony
- Mother Rooney Unscrolls the Hurt
= 1979-1985: ''Captain Maximus'' =
- Getting Ready
- Even Greenland
- Ride, Fly, Penetrate, Loiter
- Fans
=== 1986-1993: Bats Out of Hell ===
- High-Water Railers
- Two Things, Dimly, Were Going at Each Other
- Bats Out of Hell Division
- Evening of the Yarp: A Report by Roonswent Dover
- Mother Mouth
- Rat-Faced Auntie
- Scandale d'estime
- Hey, Have You Got a Cig, the Time, the News, My Face?
=== 1993-1996: High Lonesome ===
- Get Some Young
- A Creature in the Bay of St. Louis
- Two Gone Over
- Drummer Down
- Uncle High Lonesome
= 2000s: ''Long, Last, Happy'': New Stories =
- Fire Water
- Sick Soldier at Your Door
- Lastward, Deputy James
- Rangoon Green
- Publisher's Note
Critical reception
The collection received positive reviews in Publishers Weekly, The New York Times Book Review,Justin Taylor, "[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/26/books/review/Taylor-t.html Oh, the Sweet Terror]", The New York Times Book Review, 24 December 2010. The New York Times,Dana Jennings, "[https://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/29/books/29book.html Southern Writer With a Soft Spot for Wild Men Metes Out High-Octane Bonbons]", The New York Times, 28 December 2010. The Wall Street Journal,James Parker, "[https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052748703848204575608620045438254 Proudly Defying Description]", The Wall Street Journal, 4 December 2010. The Los Angeles Times,David L. Ulin, "[https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2011-jan-02-la-ca-barry-hannah-20110102-story.html Book review: 'Long, Last, Happy: New and Selected Stories' by Barry Hannah]", Los Angeles Times, 2 January 2011. Slate,Jacob Rubin, "[https://slate.com/culture/2010/12/barry-hannah-s-ecstatic-fiction-is-gathered-in-long-last-happy.html Goodbye Epiphany, Hello Ecstasy]", Slate, 20 December 2010. and NPR.Michael Schaub, "[https://www.npr.org/2011/07/14/132714783/long-last-happy-barry-hannahs-southern-charm 'Long, Last, Happy': Barry Hannah's Southern Charm]", NPR, 8 January 2011. Reviewers focused on Hannah's ability as a prose stylist, the density and conciseness of his short stories, his influence on other writers, and the effectiveness of the collection in providing an introduction to Hannah's work. In the May/June 2011 issue of Bookmarks, the book was scored 4.5 out of 5. The magazine's critical summary reads: "All that, of course, is reason enough to delve into this Southern master's work, and there's no better place to start".{{Cite web |title=Long, Last, Happy: New and Collected Stories By Barry Hannah|url=http://www.bookmarksmagazine.com/book-review/long-last-happy-new-and-collected-stories/barry-hannah|access-date=14 January 2023 |website=Bookmarks|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160807234609/http://bookmarksmagazine.com/book-review/long-last-happy-new-and-collected-stories/barry-hannah|archive-date=7 Aug 2016}}
== References ==
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