Actor's tale of modern love

Edwin Irvanus, Contributor, Jakarta

Ash Wednesday; By Ethan Hawke; Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2002; 221 pages

If Ethan Hawke was not a famous actor, his second novel Ash Wednesday could have made him a well-known novelist. He has written the sort of joyously tortured book that guys in their 20s like to carry around and quote to girls over coffee and cigarettes.

When his first novel The Hottest State was published in 1997, one critic wrote: "Somewhere between astronauts walking on the moon and poodles walking on their hind legs lies the accomplishment of actors writing books."

It would be easy to review Hawke with a variation on that sentiment, but the truth is, this one is a good book. Hawke has advanced substantially from his first novel.

Ash Wednesday is the kind of thing you approach hoping that he may have put a foot wrong. But he hasn't. This is very definitely a book with a point of view.

His fiction, just like his film works -- Hawke got his first Oscar Nomination in the supporting role in Training Day with Oscar best actor Denzel Washington) -- comes most clearly into focus when it gets down to the nitty-gritty. Dissecting the dirt and disappointment of love, his prose is earthy without ever being earthbound. Although it feels lush, there is never a word too many.

One of the best things I can say about this book, ironically enough, is that it wouldn't make a good movie. It's about character, language and ideas. And the main idea is love. This is an engrossing story of men and women, parents and children, love and loneliness.

Jimmy Heartsock, a staff sergeant in the Army, breaks up with his pregnant girlfriend, Christy Walker, and then 15 hours later goes AWOL and chases her down at a bus station and proposes. Christy is understandably skeptical, but she allows him to drive her from New York to her home in Texas in his Chevy Nova. Thus develops a classic existential road-trip tale. To love or not to love is the question.

Ash Wednesday is a tale of modern love. Taking the form of a road novel, it follows Jimmy and Christy as they travel from New York to Texas, exploring the thorny ground of commitment and wary love.

Christy is not optimistic. "I knew we would never get married. I understood and had come to terms with the fact that our destiny was to break each other's hearts, to destroy each other."

Jimmy, for his part, is desperately committed. "I really love this girl and I see her as an opportunity, a window, you know? A chance to show up for something. Even if it's a terribly humble goal, it's one I might be able to achieve."

As the son of a manic-depressive Vietnam veteran who commits suicide, Jimmy has some big-time issues, as they say. Christy, whose Texan politician father has been successful at everything except marriage, has a trunk full of fears.

As they try to sort out their relationship, they talk about life, love and spirituality in a way that often drags the novel down. The book is full of the adolescent philosophizing that people in their late 20s should have outgrown.

Sitting in a Howard Johnson in Times Square, they have what seems an endless conversation about religion, identity and creating a home.

Their story is told from alternating his and her points of view. Both Jimmy and Christy are damaged but on the mend. "To know who you are and then to accept it - that is life's journey," a priest tells Jimmy, and this is also the book's journey.

This is a fully felt novel with a lot of truth. Hawke has a good sense of place, but his strong suit is dialogue, internal and external. He has an impressive understanding of the agony and irony of self-examination. Hawke demonstrates a maturity of style and vision as well as a compelling sense of detail.

Ash Wednesday is a novel of blazing emotion and remarkable elegance, a post-modern tale that captures the intensity -- the excitement, fear and joy -- of being on the threshold of the mysterious country of marriage and parenthood. Powerful, assured, large of heart, and punctuated by moments of tremendous humor, it represents, for Hawke the novelist, a major leap forward.

It is not a perfect novel or a major one, but it is absorbing and thoughtful, observant and witty, with enough delicately crafted flashes to justify its existence well beyond its author's Hollywood fame. It is not subtle, but you don't name your socked- in-the-heart hero Jimmy if you're going for subtlety.

The thing that bothers me most of the time I read this book is that I keep saying "Don't let Ethan Hawke's star status deter you from reading a great book". There's every reason for skepticism: When celebrities branch out, they often cross a line between ambition and star-driven hubbub. But in both his novels, Hawke falls safely on the side of ambition.

But there's no use pretending some unknown guy named Ethan wrote this book. It's impossible to read Ash Wednesday, without an image of the author hovering over the book in all his familiar roles. Apparently, Hawke has a sincere belief in his Generation X philosophy. Like some of his famous role in Dead Poets Society, Hamlet, Great Expectations and Reality Bites, this novel is still a Gen-X paean.

In the end the lovers appear to find the grace and resurrection they are seeking, and Hawke appears to have found a second career.