The Tennis Handsome was published by Alfred A. Knopf in 1983. French Edward, a stunningly beautiful young man with brain damage from a lightning strike, plays tennis with an uncanny natural grace. His manager, Baby Levaster, exploits French Edward’s beauty and talent for profit, dragging him through the Southern tennis circuit while various women, con men, and fellow damaged souls orbit around them.
The novel expanded a novella that had appeared in Airships and was Hannah’s most sustained exploration of his recurring theme: the relationship between physical beauty and psychological damage.
Collecting The Tennis Handsome
First edition (Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1983): Boards with dust jacket.
Market values:
- Fine in dust jacket: $40–$100
- Very good: $15–$40
Projected values (2026–2036): Moderate appreciation.
Sport and Obsession
The Tennis Handsome (1983) follows French Edward, a beautiful, brain-damaged tennis player, and Baby Levaster, the doctor obsessed with him. The novel (an expansion of stories from Airships) uses sport as a metaphor for the American obsession with physical perfection and the violence that underlies it. Hannah’s Mississippi is a place where beauty and damage are inseparable, and The Tennis Handsome is his most concentrated exploration of that theme.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is Hannah’s reputation today? Hannah’s reputation has grown steadily since his death in 2010. Writers continue to cite him as a major influence, his books remain in print, and the posthumous collected stories (Long, Last, Happy, 2010) consolidated his standing as one of the most important American short-story writers of the twentieth century.