Fiction: I Am a Prayer(Excerpt from the novel)

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: I Am a Prayer is the author’s latest published novel (Atmosphere Press, November 15, 2022). It is about loss and gifts, and the efforts we make to find meaning in life when tragedy is an inescapable aspect of love. Raymond Shackleford’s journey takes him to a variety of venues — from a dance club to the depths of his own past — but it will be a chance encounter with a stranger that changes everything.] 

My friend Lauren always said, ‘Write the ending you want.’

Book Review: Tripping to Dickeyland

5 years ago today:
“An elegy for 

James Dickey”

By Moristotle

[Apropos my recent poem, “For My Grandmother Effie [Dickey Dean],” we republish this review from May 4, 2018.]

There’s something very special about an audiobook recorded by the author, and Michael Hanson is an excellent reader. My paperback copy of his tribute to his mentor, the poet and novelist James Dickey, arrived from Amazon weeks ago.

Book Review: Nate’s New Age

Michael Hanson’s novel (upper left)
on display at Flyleaf Books
in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

A Wild Ride

Reviewed by Moristotle

Like the life of the central character of Michael Hanson’s novel Nate’s New Age, reading it can be a bit of a bumpy ride, especially if you make the mistake I did at the start: trying to read it only a few pages at a sitting. After a couple of weeks of sporadic sittings, of having to thumb back to be reminded who Brenda was, or Max, or Shuly, or Margaret, or Rebecca, or Kimberly, or his therapist Lynn… I finally realized I needed to buckle down and read continually. That worked much better, and I recommend that other readers approach it the same way.

Fiction: Excerpts from Nate’s New Age

By Michael Hanson

Nate is a 28-year-old skydiving instructor at Psycho Sky Sports. Having recently quit a bartending job in an effort to rein in his own drug/alcohol dependency, he decides to travel to Europe for a solo hiking adventure.
    These excerpts were selected from that particular story line of the many that make up Nate’s tale.

For over a thousand years people have made the journey across Spain’s northernmost margin, on El Camino de Santiago. Though started by Christians (who made the march to the burial place of St. James in Santiago de Compostela as a kind of penance for their sins), the hike has become a popular pilgrimage for people from all walks of life, making the trek for their own personal reasons.

After 33 Years...

Michael Hanson has a novel in print!

By Moristotle

Today Atmosphere Press published Michael Hanson’s novel, Nate’s New Age. Atmosphere’s website describes the book as

Darkly comic and fast-paced...A 28-year-old skydiving instructor searches for – and avoids – meaning in his life through substance-abuse and sexual adventure. His most controlled moments are jumping out of a plane at 15,000 feet. Nate knows it is time to plant his feet on solid ground. Will he make changes, or has he become addicted to the plunge?

Three Years Ago Today: Tripping to Dickeyland

Still a fun trip

By Michael Hanson

On July 17, 2017, my elegy book for teacher, poet, novelist James Dickey, Tripping To Dickeyland, was published, and I spent the next few months basking in the delicious luxury of being a writer who, 30 years subsequent to finishing his first novel, finally had readers....
    At least a few of them.

Michael Hanson will be at Flyleaf Books this week

Remembering James Dickey

By Moristotle
 

Flyleaf Books announces on its website:

Event:
    Michael Hanson reads from his book
    Tripping to Dickeyland
Event date:
    Wednesday, Sept. 12, 2018 - 7:00 p.m.
Event address:
    752 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.
    Chapel Hill, NC 27514

Book Review: Tripping to Dickeyland

“An elegy for James Dickey”

By Moristotle

There’s something very special about an audiobook recorded by the author, and Michael Hanson is an excellent reader. My paperback copy of his tribute to his mentor, the poet and novelist James Dickey, arrived from Amazon weeks ago.

Gunned down

An excerpt from a novel in progress

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: Raymond, age 40, recalls an event from his 27^th year – the death of his best friend, Lauren, who was shot to death while on her morning jog. Our previous excerpt from this novel appeared on September 29.
    The rise of gun violence in America makes today’s piece eminently current, as incidents of gun violence are reported virtually every day, more people than ever must deal with the loss of family and friends, and politicians fervently debate what to do, or likely not.]

Ask Wednesday: How about novelist Michael Hanson’s new website?

Michael Hanson reading from
This Sweet Intercourse

Yes, indeed!

Interviewed by Morris Dean

We learned only this week that Chapel Hill, North Carolina novelist Michael Hanson, several of whose writings we have excerpted, recently launched his new website. We liked its clean, understated layout, and its art! We followed up by asking Michael a few questions [in italics]:

Third Saturday Fiction

Excerpt from
The Suicide Diary,
a novel

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: The narrator is a 27-year-old novelist whose girlfriend, Karla, has recently left him. He has decided he is going to commit suicide but will keep a diary of all that transpires prior to the precipitous act, identifying it as his new novel and leaving it for his editor to find.]

Fifth Monday Fiction

Excerpt from a novel in progress

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: Raymond is still 40, still grieving the death of his mother (JP), and he remembers. A previous excerpt appeared on June 30.]

This business of shifting my brain’s focus when I don’t like the direction it’s taking causes a certain internal conflict: while it can keep me from obsessing over morose matters (the harrowing ordeal of my mom’s death, for instance, or all the wish-I-hads I haul around now that she’s gone), maybe I’m just dodging the truth, refusing to face what’s really happening, regardless how uncomfortable it might make me. What’s the difference between what I’m doing, in other words, and an alcoholic turning to the bottle, or a TV junky burying his brain in “reality shows” rather than taking the time to look long and hard at what’s happening in his very own life?

Fifth Monday Fiction

Excerpt from a novel in progress

By Michael Hanson

[Editor’s Note: Raymond is now 40, and he still refers to his mother as JP, which stands for Janie Poo.]

Though she’d sometimes make mention of the Big Guy, JP didn’t seem to buy into the conventional Catholic Creator she was raised to believe in, and although I never pressed for specifics on what that all-important word meant to her, how did she define it, I did ask her about Heaven and Hell (having been scared shitless ever since Sunday School): did she believe these existed as actual places the way we were taught? Her response confirmed how far she’d strayed from the Catholic course.

Third Saturday Fiction

Excerpt from the novel This Sweet Intercourse: Raymond in the dark

By Michael Hanson

[Editor's note: Another excerpt from the same novel appeared on December 30. Raymond is still in the 4th grade.]

Though he’d forget the fact, the springboards of change were situated all around, one of which slid beneath him on a Wednesday afternoon while he rummaged the dirtyclothes hamper in search of socks: the closet door accidentally closed behind him, and after the brief initial panic passed he decided to stick it out in the dark, see what it was like.

Fifth Monday Fiction

Excerpt from the novel This Sweet Intercourse: Raymond in 4th grade

By Michael Hanson

[Editor's note: The prologue from the same novel appeared on August 17.]

The chemistry set came in a boxed metal container much like a small suitcase, hinges on one edge and a latch on the other. On one side of the case were ten small blue plastic bottles in which were kept the chemicals he’d use to conduct his experiments, and on the other were the tools he would need: four test tubes with an accompanying rack in which to stand them, along with a bristly brush for cleaning; a metal tonglike instrument used for gripping the test tubes; and even a small “Bunsen burner,” which was fun primarily because it legitimized his using matches.

Fifth Monday Fiction

Excerpt from the novel Room to Fall

By Michael Hanson

[Solomon, 27, has just received news that provokes reflections on his high school years (a decade gone), during which he met his best friend, Kurt.]

I’d never even spoken to the guy—he was a junior, after all, and I a lowly (scared shitless) freshman—when he appeared at my locker one afternoon and said, Hey man, you got a sheet of paper? Removing a single sheet of loose-leaf paper from a spiral-bound notebook, I handed it to him only to watch him tear it into squared sections, turning fragments this way and that to be torn further while I watched apathetic and dubious, wondering what in the world he was doing and why was I being asked to bear witness to it? When the sheet was at last reduced to what I imagined were dozens of small torn scraps, he began to unfold it…opening the once-shredded but magically-restored sheet while my mouth dropped stupidly, awestruck—me damn near bowled over—and by the time he finished and handed me the fold-worn proof of this miracle and said, Take nothing for granted, he was by then bored with it, walking away casually as if he’d already done for me all that he could.

Third Saturday Fiction

Prologue from the novel This Sweet Intercourse

By Michael Hanson

I’ve never been here before. The building is steeped in cold, dimly-lighted and with few windows, all tinted. Corridors starfish in every direction like a labyrinth inward, seeking a center that isn’t there: the biggest building in the world. Given instructions I take the next right and find myself in a culdesac where three rooms cluster next to two nurses’ stations, one on either side of the hallway. I nod hello to the woman in white seated there skimming a magazine, then walk into the stuffy airless room where my father lies sleeping. Dying.