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Hawkes latest doesn’t set clear goals

Ash Wednesday, the second novel by actor Ethan Hawke, tells the story of Jimmy and Christy, two people who might be in love but are definitely becoming parents and their cross country trip in a Chevy Nova to bring Christy home to Texas. Set in the present, this book is more character development than anything else. Hawke has done a wonderful job giving us two characters that are so full of complexities and quirks that the reader is constantly surprised by what happens next. While these are magnificently thick characters, there is little exploration into what motivates them or how they truly work. While it is fitting for Hawke to deliver these characters in the blunt, rapid-fire way that he does, he lacks the eloquence that would make his novel a more coherent read.

While essentially a love story, this book also tells the coming of age stories of its two main characters. These two are fleshed out, boned and gutted, until almost every thought and bodily process is laid out for the reader, but characters that are intriguing and could have added greatly to the book are left to only a few scenes each. Hawke tries to give the reader a feeling of knowing Jimmy and Christy inside and out, but leaves much of their histories and the people of their pasts in the shadows. Perhaps the only other person Hawke really writes of in depth is Jimmy’s father—a manic depressive who committed suicide when Jimmy was nine—and he is the character that most perplexes the reader. Yet even this character is described bluntly with Hawke’s frank tone. “He was hospitalized at least once a year and sometimes twice. In his suicide note he claimed the fear of reoccurring insanity had left him incapable of any enjoyment.” While discussing even the most painful of events, Hawke tells them from a few steps away and leaves the reader to do most of the digging and emotional work on their own.

It is hard to gather any insight or enlightenment from the story of two characters that have far too much to figure out themselves in only 230 pages. Perhaps Hawke’s goal was simply to give the reader a love story where the right people end up together in the end, for there is little else that a reader can gather from this book. Hawke’s real strength as a writer lies in the fact that he really lets you get to know his characters. Where his real weakness lies is in giving these characters something to do. It is in the action of this book that it becomes unbelievable and makes the reader lose interest.

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