Uncommon Type: Some Stories

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks 403 pages

I have to admit that the only reason that I picked up this book because I wanted to see if they were published because author Tom Hanks is movie star Tom Hanks, or if they were worthy of publication. I’m happy to say that the latter is the case.  Now I won’t say that I loved all of them, but I did find the majority enjoyable.

My favorite story was “Christmas Eve 1953.” It starts out with what seems to be a remembrance of one family’s Christmas Eve traditions. I wondered if they were the Hanks’s rituals. Then after the kids have gone to bed, the story takes a nosedive into how the holidays aren’t happy for everyone. You see, turns out Father/Virgil is a vet who suffered several amputations. Every Christmas Eve, around midnight, an old Army buddy, Bud, calls him. They catch up and remember the ones who didn’t make it home from the war.  Truly poignant, and I found myself wiping away a tear a time or two.

My least favorites were four interludes: “Our Town Today with Hank Fiset.” They were okay, but really didn’t touch on the human condition…or me…as his other stories did.

There stories that had the same characters as other stories; a bit of Sherwood Anderson’s “Winesburg, Ohio.”  It was fun to hear about characters such as Anna, Steve Wong and MDash. I felt a kinship with these characters because I had read about them earlier and sort of knew them. Another characteristic aspect that each story had was a typewriter. I was always eager to find out how Hanks would work into the stories.

I highly recommend “Uncommon Type: Some Stories.”  Therefore, it receives 6 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.