Hanks proves his bona fides as a serious scribe, producing a collection of 17 short stories so accomplished and delightful he can rest assured he has a great fallback plan should that acting thing, you know, not work out ... Good acting is about good storytelling, so maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that Hanks can dream up a multitude of characters and worlds for them to inhabit. Like any great actor or writer, he brings a panorama of emotion to these tales, from humor to poignancy and a lot in between ... So yeah, some of these tales are pretty retro and some of the references date Hanks, who is 61 ('Rat Packesque,' 'Abbott and Costello'). Some of the kids in the contemporary stories talk like it’s the 1950s. These are quibbles, though ... Hanks does what all the best story writers do: He packs a punch, a pow, a wow.
While all of the 17 stories in Uncommon Type feature a different antique manual typewriter (Hanks is an avid collector), they are linked by something greater than typewriter ribbons: a decidedly benign, humane view of people and their foibles ... Some of the stories are whimsical, some funny, some downright sentimental. Even when Hanks writes about somber subjects like the durable distress of combat or the high stakes for immigrants fleeing persecution, he finds a sweet spot ... Is this great literature? No — it's too generic and mawkish. But Uncommon Type offers heartfelt charm along with nostalgia for sweeter, simpler times — even if they never really were quite so sweet or simple.
It’s true that the bulk of these seventeen—seventeen!—stories sound like Tom Hanks movies. Or rather, they are stories that could have been written by an alien whose only exposure to the planet earth is through Tom Hanks movies ... in four hundred pages, there’s hardly even a hint of conflict or a suggestion that American life is anything less than a holiday where everyone rides Schwinn bikes, leaves the immigration office to go bowling, and has a dog named Biscuit. If there’s anything good to observe about Uncommon Type, it’s that Hanks may have accidently revived a long-lost literary form: the idyll, as practiced by Goethe, placid and innocuous pastorals that invoke ornate symbolism ... The impregnable constellation we call 'Tom Hanks,' with its observations on what life is like a box of, can give no real offense, can do us no lasting harm. But Uncommon Type is pushing it, man, a collection of clichés that only deserves clichés in return.
As an actor, Tom Hanks has an understated performance style; the hard work seems to get done under the surface, where we can’t see it. All we see is the truth of the character. The same goes for the 17 short stories in this thoroughly engaging book ... The stories are brief and sometimes seem abbreviated, but they possess a real feel for character and a slice-of-life realism that combine to deliver considerable depth beneath the surface. A surprising and satisfying book from a first-time fiction writer.
It might interest Freud that a recurrent trope in Hanks’s stories is stressing the dissimilarity of life to cinema: lovers worry that they have become 'like characters in a movie'; siblings close in age refuse to dress 'like twins in some movie'. Strikingly, though, the strongest stories are the most cinematic ... The question writers are most commonly asked at literary festivals is whether they prefer to compose with a pen, laptop or typewriter, so Hanks, when puffing Uncommon Type, should prove the dream guest. But before attempting further fiction, he might be better employed translating 'A Junket in the City of Light' or 'The Past Is Important to Us' into the medium where his greatest talent lies.
Tom Hanks’ first published book, Uncommon Type, left me with few questions about who his characters were or what was driving their actions. And that’s too bad. It felt as if the people in these stories stepped right up, proffered a nice firm handshake, announced the basic tenets of their existence, and then returned to their mostly unruffled lives … The problem is that the characters here tend to come across as types — common ones — lacking in psychologically nuanced interior lives. Potential satires don’t satirize enough. Potentially conflict-rich situations fizzle out … These stories have their pleasures: descriptions of food, objects, and rituals that gratify in their careful attention to humble delights.
While some in this collection of 17 stories are less successful than others, he gains his stride and writes for a certain audience — the kind who might turn up to see his films — about family, failed romances and life’s foibles, with a few futuristic fantasies thrown in. He has particular aptitude for writing dialogue, perhaps unsurprisingly, and a wry turn of phrase that blooms at times into rollicking repartee … It is clear that Hanks is aiming for entertainment and whimsy over any attempt at high literary style. And on those terms, these stories are a hit.
Hanks’s stories sometimes lead to pat, happy endings, but not always—'Christmas Eve 1953' develops a simple holiday story into a rumination on war. Similarly, 'The Past Is Important to Us' employs a sharp, unexpected conclusion to elevate a story of time travel and romance at the 1939 World’s Fair. Hanks’s narrators speak with similar verbal tics—multiple narrators say 'Noo Yawk,' for example—but the stories they tell generally charm. The only true misfires come when Hanks breaks away from traditional structure: the story-as-screenplay 'Stay With Us' drags, and faux newspaper columns by man of the people Hank Fiset start clever but turn grating.
Hanks can write the hell out of typing, and his dialogue is excellent, too. Has he read William Saroyan? He should. While these stories have the all-American sweetness, humor, and heart we associate with his screen roles, Hanks writes like a writer, not a movie star.
