Mr. Hanks Goes to Print

How a Riviera Superstar Honors His Love of the Written (and Typed) Word

By JOHN HARLOW | Editor-in-Chief

If there is one Palisadian author who probably does not need to be promoted in his hometown newspaper, it’s Tom Hanks.

On the other hand, if there is one Palisadian author that his hometown audience is likely to read, or at least borrow from the Palisades Branch Library, it’s Tom Hanks.

Writing is a jealous game, and some fellow authors may be feeling a little green: The man in The Riviera already has a shelf-load of awards, a healthy marriage, respect from his professional peers and public affection. He could run for president as a liberal Ronald Reagan.

So why is he taking even more money from a challenged business to publish a collection of short stories, “Uncommon Type”—250,000 hard-back, first-run from Alfred J. Knopf—on Tuesday, Oct. 17?

Because some actors make good writers.

If they get over themselves, they can be observant, empathetic and, yes, funny. Carrie Fisher, Steve Martin, Hugh Laurie and James Franco have all proven they can spin more than ghostwritten memoirs.

I once asked Fisher why she needed to write: I was her back-up pooch holder at an Oscar Wilde awards party hosted by J.J. Abrams at the Bad Robot studio in Santa Monica. (Yes, it was for work and name-dropping purposes.)

The princess twinkled (almost literally, don’t know how she did that): “It fills in the holes between [stage] calls. It’s either that or getting naughty.” She managed both, and we miss her.

Hanks had told the media a similar tale, sans the drug references: that elements of this collection of tall and all-too-human tales were penned during downtime between shoots in Europe.

Well, not penned.

The title is a reference to his chosen means of expression, the venerable typewriter: Hanks has hundreds. And his typing app, Hanx Writer, is primo nostalgia for two-fingered demons such as myself—now if only they could bring back that inky smell, too.

It may also be a reason why he signed with Knopf: The century-old publisher is famed for its attention to design and typography.

In an era when editors are an endangered species, Knopf still concludes every volume with an unnumbered page entitled “A Note on the Typeface.”

Hanks, once a poor boy from a broken, peripatetic family, also gets to join a literary stable that includes Albert Camus, Ezra Pound, Julia Child, Haruki Murakam—and, oh yes, Bill Clinton.

Hanks loves books—the smell, the sensuality of them.

He made up for playing a predatory book chain operator out to gut an indie bookstore in 1998’s “You’ve Got Mail,” by getting involved in the fight to save Village Books on Swarthmore in 2008. He signed dozens of books, knick-knacks and possibly one dog.

It did not work: That area was in shabby decline, as was the book business as it faced downloads and whatever comes next. But it kept the doors open for a while, a wonderfully generous thing.

If you hadn’t guessed, this is not a review of “Uncommon Type.”

The one short story that has been excerpted in The Hollywood Reporter, about a young actor’s brush with fame in Europe, may feel a little “navel-gazie,” but is said not to be typical.

Publishers Weekly, which like Hollywood, merges the craft and the business, points out that the 17 tales over 416 pages are threaded together by the reoccurring image of typewriters, some built around them, others mentioning them in passing.

There is time travel and sci-fi in there, and doomed romance and, of course, bowling. There are misfires, says PW, but overall it works.

On the other hand, who apart from a reputation-seeking troll would savage Hanks? It would be like drowning a puppy.

Hanks has committed many grievous sins, that weirdly flat haircut in “The Da Vinci Code” foremost among them. (And it’s sequel.)

Yet his book, if the back-cover blurbs by celebrity friends Steve Martin and Carl Hiaasen are to be believed (although they are largely teasing) is unlikely to appear on a “Bad Tom” listicle any time soon.

And, judging by Hanks’ reaction to a complaint about the unfortunate “Larry Crowne,” if you don’t enjoy it and bump into him in Starbucks, he will give you your $26.95 back.

Because it’s a literary law: Writers who use typewriters are always flush with cash.