The Passion Artist

A classic of dark eroticism from one of the great American writers of the twentieth century.

Literature & Fiction

John Hawkes

Literary

Harper&Row

Virginie: Her Two Loves

Hutchinson

Whistlejacket

Contemporary

Minerva

After years of underground existence, this brilliant novel is emerging as a classic of visionary writing and still remains Hawkes's only work devoted solely to American life.The Beetle Leg, John Hawkes's second full-length novel, was first published by New Directions in 1951. After years of underground existence, this brilliant novel is emerging as a classic of visionary writing and still remains Hawkes's only work devoted solely to American life. As a 'surrealist Western" (Newsweek), and a violent and poetic portrayal of "a landscape of sexual apathy" (Albert J. Guerard), The Beetle Leg is a rich flight into the special vein of comedy that Hawkes had begun to exploit a decade before the popular acceptance of "black humor."

The Beetle Leg (New Directions Paperback)

Humor & Satire

New Directions

The Cannibal was John Hawkes's first novel, published in 1949. "No synopsis conveys the quality of this now famous novel about an hallucinated Germany in collapse after World War II. John Hawkes, in his search for a means to transcend outworn modes of fictional realism, has discovered a a highly original technique for objectifying the perennial degradation of mankind within a context of fantasy.... Nowhere has the nightmare of human terror and the deracinated sensibility been more consciously analyzed than in The Cannibal. Yet one is aware throughout that such analysis proceeds only in terms of a resolutely committed humanism." - Hayden Carruth

The Cannibal

This collection brings together in one volume all of John Hawkes's shorter fictions, a number of which have been out of print for some years. It includes six short stories, his novel, and the two short novels The Owl and The Goose on the Grave, written in the early 1940s. Each brings us more of the extraordinary qualities of imagination, and the unique prose style, that have made John Hawkes one of the most admired American writers of his generation.

Lunar Landscapes

New Directions Publishing

"John Hawkes is an extraordinary writer. I have always admired his books. They should be more widely read."―Saul Bellow Skipper, an ex-World War II naval Lieutenant and the narrator of Second Skin, interweaves past and present―what he refers to as his "naked history"―in a series of episodes that tell the story of a volatile life marked by pitiful losses, as well as a more elusive, overwhelming, joy. The past: the suicides of his father, wife and daughter, the murder of his son-in-law, a brutal rape, and subsequent mutiny at sea. The present: caring for his granddaughter on a "northern" island where he works as an artificial inseminator of cows, and attempts to reclaim the innocence with which he faced the tragedies of his earlier life. Combining unflinching descriptions of suffering with his sense of beauty, Hawkes is a master of nimble and sensuous prose who makes the awful and mundane fantastic, and occasionally makes the fantastic surreal.

Second Skin

Jeffrey, Eugenides

Reference

Blood Oranges

Mystery, Thriller & Suspense

Thrillers & Suspense

New Directions, (1971)

The Rise of Humans: Great Scientific Debates

Trying to understand our human origins has always been a fundamental part of who we are. Today, with the help of dramatic archaeological discoveries and groundbreaking advancements in technology and scientific understanding, we are closer than we've ever been to learning the true story. In recent decades, it has been the science of paleoanthropology that has led the investigation, helping us make sense of this controversial subject and providing us with a richer understanding of our origins. It's also sparked continued debate about key issues in human evolution. Did early humans evolve in Africa alone, or in regions throughout the world? Did Neandertals play an important role in our genetic heritage and, if so, how? Why did prehistoric humans form cooperative communities and create art? Now you can complete your own understanding of these issues in a fascinating 24-lecture series from an expert paleoanthropologist, who surveys both the questions that continue to rile the world's greatest minds in anthropology and the cutting-edge science responsible for them. The result is this expert guide to the wide-ranging debates over the most profound questions we can ask. Each lecture focuses on a single one of these questions and the sometimes surprising, sometimes fierce, and always illuminating debates surrounding them, including whether it was Africa or Asia that was more central to human origins, what prehistoric cultural groups were really like, and when humans actually reached the New World.

The Great Courses

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Books by John Hawkes