What kind of story can be told by a jet fighter pilot who fought—who fights—in the Civil War? The answer is a damn fine one. [In Ray] Barry Hannah very nearly merges reader and experience, greatly diminishing the distance that has always separated the two. In this novel, there are no transitions of time or space, but what emerges is a narrative that has the kind of unity and coherence that we associate with the best fiction. Every action, incident and perception echoes every other….
This novel hangs in the memory like a fishhook. It will haunt you long after you have finally put it down. Barry Hannah is a talent to reckon with, and I can only hope that Ray finds the audience it deserves.
Harry Crews, "Carry on, Doctor," in Book World—The Washington Post (© 1980, The Washington Post), November 16, 1980, p. 4.
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