Ash Wednesday [Audio Cassette]

Ethan Hawke is an author who seems to be on the verge of writing something with extreme talent and precision, but yet, he falls. He's good, but he's not great. The potential is definitely there, and reading "The Hottest State" and then this, one can see the progression upwards, the more unification of story, character, and theme.

I find it to be somewhat incredible that he can capture the mindset of a young man and a young woman on a life changing road trip so passionately. His vivid imagery, his understanding of both genders seems almost uncanny; his understanding of the viewer, the one who watches all the action as opposed to acting is wonderful.

Hawke has the ability to write well, and he does write well, but I feel as if there is always something missing reading his work. He understands the craft enough in order to write something with grand substance, and I think he would be a wonderful poet; however, I feel that within the next few novels (if he continues) he will find his voice and style, and perhaps not write so angrily all the time.

The book recounts the ill-fated and wacky tale of Jimmy and Christy, newlyweds, on a trip across the country. The prose itself is written in two styles as the author recounts aspects of it, narrating in part as Jimmy and in part as Christy. Although the tale is written as it happens, each aspect is peppered with incidents - likewise, or just ones which are related or reminisced about - from Jimmy and Christy's youth, adolescence and young adulthood. Both of their characters have a fairly positive outlook on life, but both have had to deal with adversity while growing up. You get the sense that Jimmy fared worse than Christy and has had his perceptions and morals scarred by these events.

The story reminds me of a French art-house film, for want of a better description. What I mean is that there is not a plot, per se; the story is almost like a live documentary of the tale in which the viewer is treated to a look-in to the lives of Jimmy and Christy, but the tale has not yet concluded and the producers do not yet know what is going to happen at the end. It's kind of "a day in the life of" and there isn't really the sense that the story will end out going anywhere. Whether or not the story does is up to you, the reader, to decide. I got the distinct impression that the author started to write from a skeleton of a few key events and let the story evolve as he went along.

The tale is fairly dark and harrowing, particularly the recounting of Jimmy's various bleak incidents of his youth. Youi will find Jimmy loathsome at times; and Christy sometimes comes across as a bit of a hopeless case as well. As far as redemption goes, well... I don't want to give too much away.

The book itself, though, is not put-downable and I managed to tear through it whenever I could get a few minutes to read in about 4 days.

Tis is the author's 2nd novel; both were published to critical acclaim. I have long admired Mr Hawke as an actor, particulary in Gattaca which is a fine example of brilliant science-fiction, and I hope he has success with his future endeavours as an author.

The chapters in Hawke's story alternate between the voice of Jimmy - maybe AWOL, but really just extending an official trip - and his girlfriend Christy. Both of them make regular digressions from the main story, Jimmy more often and at higher speeds than Christy, whose stream of consciousness is less verbose and pontificating than Jimmy's. Jimmy cusses his way through pseudo-logical argumentation, proclamations, self-justifications and unnecessarily harsh self-criticism (good fodder for later self-justification, no doubt). He relishes exclaiming about Christy's "dynamite ass" and her "great big tits," as well as her "long queenly fingers." Jimmy is convinced that her beauty, intelligence, and grace put her way out of his league.

Christy thinks nearly the same thing. She is out of Jimmy's league, but not for the same reasons as Jimmy states. It's just that Jimmy is immature. He doesn't know what he wants. She doesn't either, Christy admits, but she's not trying to live her life otherwise. Christy only knows that, after one failed marriage already in her young life, she isn't willing to chance it again. Even though she's pregnant with Jimmy's child - BECAUSE she's pregnant with Jimmy's child - she wants to go back home to Houston, alone, and...and she doesn't know what, after that.

These two voices aren't as distinct as they might be. Both take frequent detours in their individual narratives to recount memories; they are both quite aware of the tight rhythm of sex that shapes their young lives; they both speak rapid-fire most of the time; and they are both being driven toward a distant point in their respective personal histories - Christy to her childhood home in Houston, and Jimmy to his marriage to Christy. Their journeys are reckless and lonely, and they only accompany one another like two cars racing down a highway together, side by side, nearly touching all the time, actually touching and bumping and scraping together frequently, and veering wildly away from one another at several rough spots. It's a crazy ride for both, and a wonder that there isn't a fatal crackup right at the start - the most dangerous and critical time of a journey.

Hawke's pace and pen don't let up; he carries us along with these two young, fragile beings, scraped up and agile, dizzy and resolute, lonely and hanging on to each other with care and tenacity. If the reader holds on, too, it's worth seeing where these two lovers race and careen to and, maybe for a moment, come to rest.