Leon Rooke

There's a video on YouTube about manuscript records of Barry Hannah's at the University of Mississippi, and they interview a professor who recounts first reading Hannah, oh so many years ago, and the prof talks about how he had to learn to read Hannah the way Hannah wanted to be read.

He summarizes this as: learning to read for "language," not just for "story."

Rooke is the same way.

Read for the stories, the "acts of kamikaze fiction" in Wide World in Celebration and Sorrow (Exile, 2012) are going to confound.

Read as wild arrays of language, these stories will amaze.

Rooke's fans already know this. Eager readers everywhere, all aboard!

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Here's my other post about the marvelous Mr. Rooke (from May 2010, written earlier), plus bonus interview!

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Here's the Barry Hannah video:



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Here's Leon reading poetry: