Ash Wednesday

Saw Ethan Hawk in a movie, book? TV? Don’t recall, book with Shakespeare as a backdrop, Henry IV plays, I think. This one is leftover from a one-time deal, and left in place from a previous iPad, be my guess, transferred over, and ready when I couldn’t find anything that quite suits my tastes — at the moment. I carry up to a dozen books I’m “reading,” in various apps, and that doesn’t include the stack of books to read by the bedside, or in my living room. But finishing the last novel, I finally flipped this one open.

Ash Wednesday

“No. I don’t want you to go to Texas. I don’t want anybody to go to Texas. Texas is for derelicts. They should make it a jail, give it back to Zapata.” Page 48.

Strange novel, almost epistolary in format, bouncing between two young lovers, and yet, not much of the novel stayed with me — except for one part. A tiny piece, a fragment of a single sentence, and the female character describes an action.

Clearly fiction and clearly an author — accomplished — but seemingly wrestling with his own demons.