{"id":29919,"date":"2023-01-09T13:26:31","date_gmt":"2023-01-09T17:26:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/?p=29919"},"modified":"2023-01-09T13:26:31","modified_gmt":"2023-01-09T17:26:31","slug":"han-ong-hammer-attack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/2023\/01\/09\/han-ong-hammer-attack\/","title":{"rendered":"Han Ong: “Hammer Attack”"},"content":{"rendered":"

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“Hammer Attack”<\/strong><\/span>
\nby Han Ong<\/span>
\nfrom the January 16, 2023 issue of The New Yorker<\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

[\/fusion_title][fusion_text]<\/p>\n

\"\"[fusion_dropcap boxed=”no” boxed_radius=”” class=”” id=”” color=”#003366″ hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” text_color=””]O[\/fusion_dropcap]ne of my favorite New Yorker<\/em> discoveries of the past years is the work of Han Ong. He’d been publishing plays for decades before showing up in The New Yorker<\/em> magazine in 2019. Since then we’ve gotten five of his stories, including today’s story “Hammer Attack.”<\/p>\n

Even after reading the first paragraph I’m not sure what we’re getting here, and I like it!<\/p>\n

Three Virgin Marys kept their baleful eyes on the back of Allen\u2019s head. But more powers were needed\u2014of clemency, of healing\u2014so, to accompany the dolorous mothers, somebody had also taped to the wall behind Allen\u2019s hospital bed half a dozen Jesuses (a few were laminated), the famous \u201cLast Supper\u201d painting, and a grave-looking figure who, Alice, one of Allen\u2019s sisters, told Gina, was St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, of last hope. I said to Gina, The school I went to in Manila was called St. Jude. It was next to the church, also called St. Jude, where hundreds of people went for Mass. St. Jude is a very popular saint with the Filipinos, I added. Although, if Gina hadn\u2019t asked and Alice hadn\u2019t told her, I would not have been hip to this figure\u2019s identity. It had been a long time since I\u2019d given any thought to my boyhood, devoutness, obedience, my family.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hope the first week of the new year has treated you well, and I hope you’ll let us know your thoughts on “Hammer Attack.”<\/p>\n

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This week’s New Yorker fiction is Han Ong’s “Hammer Attack.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29921,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"libsyn-item-id":0,"libsyn-show-id":0,"libsyn-post-error":"","libsyn-post-error_post-type":"","libsyn-post-error_post-permissions":"","libsyn-post-error_api":"","playlist-podcast-url":"","libsyn-episode-thumbnail":"","libsyn-episode-widescreen_image":"","libsyn-episode-blog_image":"","libsyn-episode-background_image":"","libsyn-post-episode-category-selection":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_thumbnail":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_theme":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_height":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_width":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_placement":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_use_download_link_text":"","libsyn-post-episode-player_custom_color":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-explicit":"","libsyn-post-episode":"","libsyn-post-episode-update-id3":"","libsyn-post-episode-release-date":"","libsyn-post-episode-simple-download":"","libsyn-release-date":"","libsyn-post-update-release-date":"","libsyn-is_draft":"","libsyn-new-media-media":"","libsyn-post-episode-subtitle":"","libsyn-new-media-image":"","libsyn-post-episode-keywords":"","libsyn-post-itunes":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-season-number":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-type":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-title":"","libsyn-post-episode-itunes-episode-author":"","libsyn-destination-releases":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-enabled":"","libsyn-post-episode-advanced-destination-form-data-input-enabled":false,"libsyn-post-episode-premium_state":"","libsyn-episode-shortcode":"","libsyn-episode-embedurl":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1323,94],"tags":[1447],"coauthors":[505],"class_list":["post-29919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-han-ong","category-new-yorker-fiction","tag-2023-new-yorker-fiction"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/Hammer-Attack.jpg?fit=700%2C400&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pqqvZ-7Mz","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29922,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29919\/revisions\/29922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29919"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mookseandgripes.com\/reviews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=29919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}