Ash Wednesday

By: Ethan Hawke

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Paperback | 2 June 2003 | Edition Number 1

At a Glance

Paperback
221 Pages

Edition Type
New edition

Dimensions(cm)
19.6 x 12.9 x 1.7

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Jimmy Heartsock is so afraid of losing his love Christy, he is going AWOL from the army and chasing after her in order to propose marriage - if it isn't too late - in a frozen car park. Christy is terrified, not so much that she's going to have a baby, but because if she takes on Jimmy Heartsock, she may end up with two.

How does anyone ever make it down the aisle? Can Jimmy stop looking vainly at mirrors, taking recreational drugs, or blaming his father for committing suicide? Can Christy stop feeling that their destiny together is to break each other's hearts, that there is a glass wall between her and the world and that her Texan politician father could avert any calamity - if only she deserved it? Are they a couple so afraid of falling, it would be easier to jump? Will they, won't they, mess this thing up?

As the unforgettable lovers drive across America, confronting family history, personal hang-ups and questions they've never even asked each other before - about faith, death and learning how to live - we are caught up in a sensationally moving, funny, and nail-biting drama of love in our time.

Industry Reviews

Following the success of his first novel, The Hottest State, this is Hawke's second take on the ubiquitous guy meets girl scenario, here pepped up with a shot of scriptural metaphor. Ash Wednesday is the first day in the Christian calendar of Lent, a period of fasting and penitence ending with the crucifixion of Jesus and his subsequent resurrection. For Jimmy Heartsock and pregnant girlfriend Christy, salvation-seeking is played out against a background of the Mardi Gras festival in Texas. Unstable and disaffected, there is more than a touch of the Holden Caulfields about Heartsock, which would be fine were it not that, far from being a mixed-up adolescent, he is 30 and a staff sergeant in the US Army. As for Christy, having Jimmy's baby might provide the focus she needs if only she can get her head sorted. Soon they're on an epic journey across America, where they meet a remarkable selection of religious obsessives and confront not only their personal demons but the everlasting questions of life, death and faith. The emotional tensions are handled well and Hawke's trenchant prose whips up sufficient vim to carry along a story which, judging by its filmic quality, has one eye on a screenplay. (Kirkus UK)

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