I’d been off the novels kick for a while, until my good friend and fellow poet Richard O’Brien mentioned that he was reading John Hawkes. I hadn’t read Hawkes in years, I told him, but books like The Cannibal, Beetle Leg and Second Skin were among my favorites from my days as an undergraduate.
The discussion that ensued on Facebook led me to put aside all of the other things I was reading (research for a book, essays by Orwell and Walter Benjamin) and reread Hawkes’ great The Lime Twig, which is perhaps his best. That began a month-plus devoted to nothing but fiction that continues this week with The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Here is the list, so far) of the summer of fiction:
- John Hawkes, The Lime Twig
- Don Delillo, Angel Esmerelda
- Russell Banks, The Reserve
- Ernest Hemingway, For Whom the Bell Tolls
On the list for the rest of the summer: More John Hawkes, Jim Thompson’s The Getaway and we’ll see what else piques my interest.
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Hank Kalet 