Tom Hanks fans are in for twice the treats this Halloween season.
Later this month, Hanks’ debut collection of short stories, Uncommon Type: Some Stories, will be released by Knopf. In addition, the two-time Oscar winner will be voicing his hilarious Saturday Night Live David S. Pumpkins character in an animated special airing on NBC October 28.
On the literary front, Tom Hanks—actor, writer, potential running mate of The Rock, and aficionado of old typewriters—has been working on his first book for a number of years. The fictional stories will span a wide variety of subjects, ranging from the “immigrant experience to torrid romantic affairs to the sudden trappings of celebrity.”
Might one of the characters own a well-worn and trusty typewriter, or could a well-placed typewriter play a prominent role in one or more of the stories? Likely yes, given Hanks’ penchant for the machine. Long a collector, this year he appeared in the documentary California Typewriter, a story about “the tactile and emotional attachment typewriter owners have to their beloved machines, whether they are creating on them or out of their parts, playing music on them or lovingly repairing them.”
Describing his writing work earlier this year and the approach he took to his first book, he said, “In the two years of working on the stories, I made movies in New York, Berlin, Budapest, and Atlanta, and wrote in all of them. I wrote in hotels during press tours. I wrote on vacation. I wrote on planes, at home, and in the office. When I could actually make a schedule, and keep to it, I wrote in the mornings from 9 to 1.”
The finished product, Uncommon Type: Some Stories, will be available beginning October 17. Tom Hanks and his many typewriters hope you enjoy it:
