Books published by Sand Hill Review Press

Extraordinary author James Hanna gives us his second collection of short stories--all of them eerily alluring yet packing a humorous or Kafkaesque wallop. Relying on his police and prison experiences, Hanna is able to craft realistic stories involving deviants as well as those who guard them, yet these stories are never police procedurals. Hanna has a Hunter S. Thompson flair that shows both the socially appalling as well as the underbelly of the 21st century and yet he delivers the wry humor to ferry us all across life’s turbulent river.

Tony is an under-loved, over-sexed cropduster who comes to California's Salinas Valley in 1972 in search of a job. In the airport bar, he shares his love of women, guns and yellow airplanes with Bill, a wannabe pilot, and their friendship begins. Tony lands a temporary job as a flight instructor and meets the world's worst pilot, Father Roberto. The priest doesn't understand why Tony compares flying fast and low to making love with a beautiful woman. The truth is, neither man in that cockpit understands love.Imagine the Great Waldo Pepper teaching Mother Theresa how to fly. No one is converting anyone here. In the sub-culture of cropdusting, Tony struggles to maintain “normal” relationships, drink away his pain, and not kill himself.FLYING BLIND is a literary novel about the broken friendship of two cropdusters and the reluctant priest who reconnects them.

The year is 1930. The place: Manila. Douglas MacArthur is the most powerful man in the Philippines, a United States colony. He's fifty years old, divorced, and he falls in love at first sight with a ravishing young Filipino woman. He writes her a love note on the spot. Her name is Isabel Rosario Cooper, an aspiring movie actress. One glance at his note and she thinks of him as my MacArthur.MacArthur pursues his romantic obsession even though he's breaking numerous taboos. She reciprocates his affection because he could open doors for her financially struggling family. That MacArthur happens to be handsome compensates for the fact that he's as old as her father. When MacArthur is appointed the U.S. Army chief of staff, he becomes the youngest four-star general and one of America's most powerful men. Out of hubris, he takes Isabel with him to America without marrying her.Amid the backdrop of the Great Depression, MacArthur and Isabel's relationship persists like "a perilous voyage on turbulent waters," as she describes it. In 1934, after four years of relationship, MacArthur leaves Isabel for fear of a political scandal.The general goes on to become the iconic hero of World War II, liberating the Philippines and rebuilding Japan. Isabel drifts in Los Angeles unable to muster the courage to return to Manila. As he ascends to his special place in American history, she plunges into a dark place, ultimately meeting a tragic death.