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GOD SAYS NO
JAMES HANNAHAM
By RACHAEL E. KATZ
del.ico.us
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MCSWEENEY'S
5.25.09
William Faulkner once wrote that good writing is "the human heart in conflict with itself." With God Says No, James Hannaham has written a work of constant anxiety and self-deceit—but in each, a glimpse of truth. Gary Gray's world tips on its axis between the dark secrets of mythical hell and the sweet, theme-parked "normalcy" of a good American family man. The beauty of the book is its simplicity, its quiet anguish, its dismal gentility. When nothing can save good Gary from his homosexual identity, he experiences a slow, agonizing resurrection as the man he is really meant to be. It is a Southern epic, heavy and humid with the civility of keeping up appearances while falling apart. Turns out, the most Christ-like thing you can do is hurt. All the while, the narrative is delivered with such lightness and wonderment that everything appears in the caricature form of the American dream. God Says No is about this innocence in enlightenment, proving that there really is something brave about every part of the journey. It takes courage to worship, to lose faith, to become yourself—or to write sincerely about any of it.
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