Boomerang Summary
Barry Hannah

Everything you need to understand or teach Boomerang by Barry Hannah.

  • Boomerang Summary & Study Guide

Boomerang Summary

Boomerang Hannah most often foIncuses on a turning point, outrageous exploit, or bizarre escapade from his past. Scarcely prefaced with any exposition, most of these events are linked only by Hannah's memory. Hannah focuses on ends and actions rather than means or motives. His prose is lean, sparse, colloquial, and sometimes exasperatingly terse. Many of the episodes revolve around music, fishing, animals, or firearms. Most of them stand as parables of the confrontation of meanness and generosity, tolerance and intolerance, humanity and inhumanity.

One of Hannah's principal satirical targets is organized religion. His hatred of southern fundamentalism, Catholicism, and Moslem zealotry grows out of his conviction that organized religion thwarts and diminishes the individual. Although Hannah mentions that he "prays," his God is a pantheistic or at least non-sectarian deity; he dreads and fears the "Christers" for their hypocrisy, priggishness, and sanctimony.

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Study Pack

The Boomerang Study Pack contains:

Boomerang Short Guide