Surveyor

I'm from Williamsport, where Hawkes teaches writing at Lycoming College, and so I've long known about his unusual story-telling gifts. This is a finely realized piece about two men who've been living alone for years, mapping the terrain in the American West, and the changes that occur in their relationship when various outsiders -- including a woman who has come to make an independent film -- come into their "terrain." Richly layered with unobtrusive symbols and interrelationships, also well-informed about its subject matter. Recommended.

As with his other novels, G.W. Hawkes offers in Surveyor deeply felt characters, intriguing plot lines, and sharply honed language. Metaphor, mystery, and the best kind of suspense--that which comes from a caring for the characters drawn on the page--keeps the reader turning not just from page to page but chapter to chapter. The relationship between the two desert-bound friends, their history, and the "invasion" of their space by a beautiful woman comingle to create a richly intriguing and well-wrought tale. Hawkes is able to divine the mysteries of the deeper forces of our lives and reveal them--in subtle desert colors, in the rhythm of dialogue, in the stirrings and gaits of character--across the pages of Surveyor with brilliant craft and utmost care.