Book Review: Bats Out of Hell

By Clayton Van Horn

I was assigned to read Bats Out of Hell by Barry Hannah (1978). This book is just under 400 pages and is filled to the top with ridiculous humor; at least it was humor in my eyes. Barry Hannah has written many works that precede this collection of short stories. Those works include Airplanes, which many would say is beneficial to read before diving into Bats Out of Hell, which is exactly what I did.

I loved the work, but I must admit that I caught on to the story-telling, and humor strategy slowly. I understood the stories at the end of the collection far more fully than the stories at the beginning of the collection. This collection of short stories is a very acquired taste. They are an acquired taste in the same sense that The Office (US) is an acquired taste. It takes a season or two to understand the humor and jokes. Just like while I was reading Bats Out of Hell it took a few stories for me to fully enjoy the stories.
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My favorite story was High-water Railers. And the title of this short story is hilarious when you think about what this story is about. And that goes for every story in the collection. This short story, High-Water Railers, is about two old fishermen that go fishing and talk about how they missed out on sexual experiences, and they regret their decisions that led them away from their sexual fantasies. It is quite funny to me because Barry Hannah did a great job about showing the “old man’s back in his day” type of humor. This old man theme goes for the entire short story collection. Almost every main character in the collection reminds me of the old man from Pixar’s UP, the movie about the house that can fly by balloons. And after doing some research into Barry Hannah’s other works, there is a very similar form of humor and writing throughout Hannah’s works.

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