Uncommon Type

The Star Writes

Hollywood star Tom Hanks is famously a collector of vintage typewriters. He is also an occasional writer, whose stories have been published in magazines like The New Yorker and Vanity Fair.

Uncommon Type is his collection of seventeen quirky stories that begin with a picture of a typewriter and also feature the now outdated writing machine in minor or major roles.

Hanks is observant, has a sense of humour and an ear for dialogue—the story about an actor being taken on a press junket is hilarious.  The stories vary in tone and style, however—the story about a woman buying a second-hand typewriter and trying to get it repaired is sweet, the sci-fi stories starring the nutty and hyperactive Anna are bizarre.

The characters cover a wide spectrum—a newly-divorced woman who avoids her cheery neighbor; the billionaire who goes time-travelling and falls in love with a woman from the past; a young man who goes surfing with his father on his nineteenth birthday and stumbles on an unpleasant secret.

He may not be as skilled a writer a he is an actor, but the stories show that he is not insular and self-absorbed as stars tend to be—he does look around and see life beyond Hollywood.

Uncommon Type

By Tom Hanks

Publisher: Knopf

Pages: 416