Ash Wednesday

I was intrigued to read a novel by Ethan Hawke and was very pleasantly surprised with his wonderful, believable use of dialogue. I felt the characters were so screwed up they wiped out any empathy I might have mustered for their situation, but there was so much thought put into this book, so many different ideas concerning our very being on this planet, that I set aside my dislike for the characters and enjoyed reading a novel with so much soul. An excellent actor and a much greater author than I expected. And he shares his beautiful first name with my son, so how could he possibly do any wrong?

When you mention the most exciting and promising writers of the younger generation, most people don't mention Ehan Hawke. And that's a shame. They should. The Hottest State, while an enjoyable freshman work, is nothing compared to the raw and profound provocative tour de force that is Ash Wednesday. Let's face it, I, like most of you, had my doubts coming in to this one. To say that those doubts have been erased and replaced by assurances of grandeur would be the understatement of the year. While he most positively should have won the Oscar for his sublime effort in Training Day, Ethan Hawke deserves equal kudos for this telling tale of enigmatic Jimmy Heartsock and his pregnant girlfriend Christy. Hawke emits such intangible, yet very real, intensity and cathartic power that lead to Jimmy's self-discovery through a trying and arduous epiphany. Folks, we're seeing Ethan Hawke at his best - don't kid yourself. If you haven't read this, then you, my friend, are missing out on a voyage into profundity. 5 Big Stars from Robert Jackson. And that's the 411.

I do not deem it necessary to re-hash the plot--since many of the other reviewers have already done so--but also because the plot is not what makes this book great. What worked in this story is mainly the characters. They were real and they were interesting, but what really made the characters work was the point of view. With two main characters, most authors would have gone with an omnicient point of view. Hawke chose to alternate between the two character's first-person points of view, which allows the reader to know the private thoughts and feelings of both characters. When other authors try this technique it usually doesn't work because the reader cannot tell the difference between the speakers, but in this book both characters are so distinct in their personal "voices" that you can always tell which one is speaking. I didn't exactly fall in love with the characters from the beginning, but they kind of grew on me and I found myself wanting to know--even CARING--about what happened to them. In the end, I was satisfied with this book and glad that I had read it. I also enjoyed Hawke's first novel, The Hottest State, and if and when there is a third, I will be sure not to miss that one either.

In his second novel, Ash Wednesday, Ethan Hawke tells the story of Jimmy and Christy, two twentysomething lovers who are on the brink of a quarter-life crisis as problems and consequences are thrown into their faces. Christy is pregnant, and Jimmy is AWOL from the Army after an "all around bad day" where he, while strung out on drugs, has to tell a mother that her military son was killed. They embark on a road trip where they each go back to their home towns, see their parents (Jimmy has only has flashbacks of his father, who committed suicide), get married, and face consequences for Jimmy's absence without leave from the Army. This book is heavy with dialogue, which is, in my opinion, a good thing. One line of dialogue can tell more about a character than pages and pages of a narrator's description, and Hawke definitely has an ear for it (possibly from all those scripts he's read?)These characters are complex, and so real. You believe them as real people, possibly someone you might know in life, and you are dying to know what happens to them next. This is one of the best books I have read all year.

- like Springsteen's 'Thunder Road', Ethan Hawke's 'Ash Wednesday' is desperate, last chance, hopeful, beautiful. The prose is so strong, this book practically has a heart-beat. Screw the naysayers, he IS a writer and a wonderful one at that.