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James Hanna wandered Australia for seven years before settling on a career in criminal justice. He spent twenty years as a counselor in the Indiana Department of Corrections and another fourteen years as a San Francisco probation officer. As a probation officer, he was assigned to a domestic violence and stalking unit.
James’ familiarity with the fringe elements of society has provided fodder for his award-winning books. His debut novel, The Siege, depicts a hostage standoff in a penal facility; his book, Call Me Pomeroy, chronicles the madcap adventures of a street musician on parole who seeks fame by joining the Occupy Oakland Movement of 2011; and his novella, The Ping-Pong Champion of Chinatown, follows the earlier blunders of Gertie McDowell. James is also the author of many short stories that have appeared in journals that like unconventional writing. Most of these stories are consolidated in his anthologies: A Second Less-Capable Head and Other Rogue Stories, Shackles and More Gripping Tales, and Fact Check and More Probing Tales. His stories vary from weirdly sci-fi to the equally bizarre world of the human comedy.
James' books have won many awards, including the Global Book Award for contemporary fiction. Lights Out Lizzie is James’ seventh book.
Reviewed by Golder Hazelton for Readers' Favorite
Lights Out Lizzie by James Hanna is an alternately poignant and hilarious chronicle of the further adventures of the author’s heroine, Gertie McDowell, who wanders through the world with the wide-eyed innocence of Voltaire’s Candide and the knee-slapping homespun wit of Mark Twain. In this delightful and unexpectedly wise sequel to his award-winning The Ping-Pong Champion of Chinatown, Hanna dishes up a generous second helping of Gertie’s absurd but profoundly enlightening adventures. From a ranch full of female former convicts to a Christian-themed traveling troupe of lady wrestlers (Gertie becomes the world champ!) to the unlikely arena of Kandahar, Afghanistan, where she has a rare opportunity to examine weightier issues like justice and mortality as she comes face-to-face with a wider world completely unlike her own.
Like all well-written satire, Lights Out Lizzie points out flaws in contemporary logic and society with laser precision. In this case, however, Hanna has greatly enhanced the accessibility of the art form by crafting a heroine and a cast of supporting characters worthy of Fannie Flagg, as earthy and down-home as anyone you might meet in the nooks and crannies of America; places like Turkey Roost, Kentucky and a dusty ranch outside Laredo, Texas. As offbeat as these characters might be, they are representative of us all because each is doing what she or he needs to do to survive in a complex and often ridiculous world. Couple these marvelous, indelible characters with some of the most colorful language ever seen in print (the entire narrative reads like a Who’s Who of American colloquial similes) and you have a one-of-a-kind, absolutely un-put-down-able novella. Read it for the characters, read it for the language, read it for the love of satire, but for goodness sake, read Lights Out Lizzie by James Hanna – it’s finer than frog hair split four ways, and that’s FINE.
