Pilot Impostor

August 16, 2021
Hannaham (Delicious Foods) returns with a captivating blend of prose and verse with full-color photo collages by the author, inspired by the work of Fernando Pessoa, air disasters, and more. Employing Jan Westerhoff’s metaphor of self as a flight simulation, Hannaham juxtaposes a photograph of a crashing plane with “Knifemagnet,” in which he considers identity and classification via the handling of a magnetized knife. A series of pieces titled “Pilot Impostor” take inspiration from famed fraudster Frank Abagnale Jr., who often posed as a commercial airline pilot. One comes in the form of a Trumpian monologue (“I am the best pilot, I’d give myself an A-plus-plus-plus”); in another, a pilot prepares for suicide-by-plane. “Lifestyle Issue” replays a police officer’s confession to the murder of an unarmed Black woman eight times, each with a tweak to the officer’s personality. “To Confound Forensics” satirically lists ways to outwit authorities (“Try using only your mind”), while “Frankenstein” speaks of the European slave trade. References to Pessoa appear in some entries, and while familiarity with the poet may help, it isn’t required to engage with Hannaham’s stimulating work, which moves like a plane in tailspin, tossing off flashes of wisdom as the ground below gets ever closer. It’s a ride worth taking. Agent: Doug Stewart, Sterling Lord Literistic.

October 1, 2021
Following the 2016 election, PEN/Faulkner winner Hannaham (Delicious Foods, 2015) was on a flight to Lisbon when he serendipitously found resonance in the work of Portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa, best known for his Book of Disquiet, a posthumously published fragmentary collection of poems and philosophical musings. Hannaham's response to Pessoa is subsequently braided with the theme of air disasters, pointedly fusing the nature of consciousness and self-deception with our present milieu. The text is augmented with visual media, including screenshots and photographs of airplanes, giving the work a postmodernist feel. Whether read as prose poems or short aphoristic thought experiments, the pieces are infused with Hannaham's distinctive dark humor, biting social commentary, and ever-present exuberance. Hannaham excels when exploring the intersection of art and reality as evidenced by his play on words: "all artists are con artists. Or all things have become art, including non-art, including con art." Calling to mind a blend of Jorge Luis Borges, Donald Barthelme, David Markson, and Steve Martin, the result is daringly original and uninhibitedly inventive, born aloft by subversive verve.

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Starred review from September 1, 2021
A short, genre-bending book that interrogates themes including art, race, and doubt. The cover of the third book from novelist Hannaham features a disquieting, arresting image: two airplane passengers bent over in their seats, hands clasped above their heads, as if bracing for impact. Early in the book, the author offers something of an explanation: "I have so many systems to monitor as I work; each aspect of the writing might as well be a knob or a dial on the console of an airplane....It's as if I am a pilot without knowing anything about how to fly an airplane." Hannaham's book--not quite a novel, not quite a short story collection, not quite like anything else--is a clever series of reflections on art, doubt, race, and impostor syndrome. Written as a response to the poetry of Portuguese writer Fernando Pessoa, the book mixes artwork with brief pieces that blur the line between prose and poetry, many focusing on aviation. In one section, a despondent pilot steers his own aircraft into the ocean; he still considers himself a "good person," reasoning that his passengers' families will get insurance payouts. Another section showcases Hannaham's mordant humor: "Do I want to die in a plane crash? I can think of some good reasons to do so. It would bring more attention to this book. It was as if he knew, the reviewers would say, always eager for a prophet." Hannaham can switch gears quickly from the tragic to the comic, and the ensuing whiplash the reader experiences is as fascinating as it is destabilizing. Each section of the book is beautifully executed in its own way, whether it's about a pedophile who agonizingly fights his urges or a White police officer who pulls over a driver of color and recites the opening lines of famous poems at him. This book might be impossible to classify, but it's easy to admire--Hannaham continues to be one of the country's smartest and most surprising writers of fiction (or whatever this book actually is). Unclassifiable, dizzying, and gorgeous.

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