Review: Uncommon Type: Some Stories

Uncommon Type: Some Stories by Tom Hanks
September 5, 2017

A friend loaned me the ARC of Tom Hanks' book. (Yes, THAT Tom Hanks.) It is a collection of short stories that, for the most part, are quite good. They are mainstream/general fiction. A couple might tilt toward adventure.

Hanks writes very well. Fantastic descriptions. Interesting characters. Vividly speakable dialogue. (No wonder, considering his day job.) It is also a quick read at 403 pages (at least this ARC was) including one screenplay.

The only criticism I might have is that I expected more from the implied typewriter theme. Hanks weaves a typewriter into every story and a couple of them center on the machine, but in most, the stories offer a cameo of one at best. Often, a character is doing something unrelated and hears someone typing in the distance, for example. In cases like that, I felt attention was drawn to an insignificant event for the sake only of making sense of why these stories are bound in the same volume. It felt forced. After seeing the title, reading the blurb, and then seeing press-release photos of Hanks standing in front of antique typewriters, I wished for something more than largely token appearances

However, it was not enough to ruin any of the stories, and I am eagerly looking forward to his next book.