SOURCE: "The Latest Whiz-Bang: Barry Hannah's Captain Maximus," in Notes on Mississippi Writers, Vol. XIX, No. 1, 1987, pp. 29-33.

In the following essay, Shepherd argues that Captain Maximus is a disappointing work that lacks the focus and freshness of Airships, Hannah's first collection.

Perhaps exculpatory jacket copy on Barry Hannah's second collection of stories, Captain Maximus (1985), refers to the autobiographical derivation of a number of these thin and generally very short fictions. Slices from the author's life average only eight pages each and forty of the volume's ninety-eight pages are given over to an unused "idea" for a Robert Altman movie. To one familiar with the author's earlier work, particularly his first collection, Airships (1978), Captain Maximus is a puzzling and altogether disappointing performance. What has happened—gone wrong—and perhaps why will be the focus of this essay.

The subject matter—oblique reflections on apocalyptic moments—has not changed...