The first novel in nearly twenty years from the acclaimed actor/writer/director is a book about art and love, fame and heartbreak -- a blistering story of a young man making his Broadway debut in Henry IV just as his marriage implodes.
A four-time Academy Award nominee, twice for writing and twice for acting, ETHAN HAWKE has starred in the films Dead Poets Society, Reality Bites, Gattaca and Training Day, as well as Richard Linklater's Before Sunrise trilogy and Boyhood. He is the author of Rules for a Knight, The Hottest State, Ash Wednesday and A Bright Ray of Darkness. He lives in Brooklyn with his four children and his wife.
Ethan Hawke is a true writer and his duality as an artist is
skilfully reflected in A Bright Ray of Darkness. Hawke circles,
descends, and crawls into his characters' skin. Grimy shadows pass
over the footlights, into the bowels of the theatre, where a
struggling actor, perhaps mirroring the writer, seeks the vine of
redemption, and claws his way into becoming. Bright Ray is a
riveting work.
*Patti Smith*
William is the star of this vivid drama from Ethan Hawke ... this
is ultimately a book about the transcendent value of great art ...
it communicates a real power.
*Sunday Times*
Film star William Harding is fed up with having his personal life
examined in public. The protagonist of this novel, the first in
five years from Hawke (best known for his acting role in Richard
Linklater's Before trilogy), is also disgusted at the ways in which
he has allowed his marriage to collapse around him. His debut
Broadway role offers him a chance at redemption and turns this
bracing book into a considered meditation on the evil of celebrity
and the demanding yet restorative power of theatre.
*New Statesman*
Ethan Hawke, whose acting career has combined celebrity wattage
with indie integrity, brings hard-won experience to his latest
literary endeavour ... [A] wild ride of a book ... Written with
real fire & originality. Not many novels combine scenes of lying
semi-conscious by a motel toilet with thoughts on the perfection of
the iambic pentameter.
*Metro*
An emotional ode to theatre as medicine for heartbreak, and an
interesting meditation on fame.
*Radio Times*
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