A Thing of Necessity: Larry Brown, Barry Hannah, and Brad Watson

By Chad

Much has been discussed about the late Larry Brown’s rough characters, and his unusual literary path. Much also about the late Barry Hannah’s originality.

The following is recorded at Seet Tea Studios, Oxford, MS June 13, 1997.

“Can you imagine the weightlifting champion of Alabama reading Knopf books?”

On how many times the story “Facing the Music” was rejected.

On Father and Son and how Larry Brown feared it was too “damn melodramatic.”

“It seems to me that there are too many novels out there that are merely adequate…It’s a down time in American fiction right now. Most of these novels don’t need to have been written. They probably could have been short stories. It’s a stretch of writing with the American novel of boring technical competence…Novels should be the thing of necessity.”