The actor and director, who made his screen debut at 15, has published several books during his acclaimed Hollywood career, and he recently produced and starred in a spectacular TV adaptation of James McBride’s “The Good Lord Bird.” out of 5, I was almost ready to give it a 6 and call it one of my all-time faves except for a few really truly glaring moments of mediocre prose. This is a really magnificent audiobook narrated by the man himself - truly entertaining and engaging, I loved listening to him, but - and it’s a big but - the book is brimming with toxic masculinity and cringey sex scenes. Every woman in the book is either a sexual conquest or a potential sexual conquest and it’s a bit tiresome. Ethan Hawke is an author. Yes, yes, yes, I know he's actually an actor. A very fine actor. A twice Oscar-nominated actor (he has two Oscar nominations for writing, too). But he is also, without doubt, an author. That's about as good a compliment as you can pay to anyone switching crafts like this. He's an artist, if you will. This is no vanity project; it's a proper, high-quality novel. Hawke spends a lot of time delving into the scenes of the protagonist on stage and the rest of the time ruminating over his broken marriage and how to handle his two children. So much of this story sounds autobiographical. What I read online, he takes parts of his life and implants it into the book. I couldn't shake the feeing of what was real and what wasn't..

Where do you find stories like THAT? Right. National Enquirer and on the cameras of the nearest paparazzi.

Retailers:

Hawke isn’t just funny. He is wildly hilarious and literate. He tells a great story that ripples with all that human intestinal squishy stuff we don’t want anybody else to see. What we get is a subtle and realistic character arc as William starts to grow up, both professionally and personally. He starts to take some responsibility for himself but, more than that, sees himself for who he is once the narcissism is stripped away. This novel was a difficult read. Brutally honest, dark, chaotic experiences that felt uncomfortable. This speaks to the skill of the author. Hawke writes clean, crisp prose, and doesn't shy away from sharing the characters inner revelations, often aggressive.

Since "Reality Bites," as a young teen, I've been a fan of Ethan Hawke. His angsty 90's vibe was swoon-worthy. Hawke's first book, "The Hottest State" solidified his talent. Not only was he a brilliant actor, but a talented writer. When you finish a movie, they always forget to call you a car. When you are starting a movie, everything runs perfectly--town cars, hotel rooms, per diem--but once the film ends they couldn't give a shit." Was für ein tolles Cover. Was für ein wunderschöner Titel! Und was für eine unterhaltsame, verblüffend gute Geschichte. Ich war sehr überrascht, dass Ethan Hawke so gut schreiben kann und eine Geschichte über einen weißen Mann doch überzeugend und passend herausgearbeitet hat. 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.

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Der Hauptcharakter ist ein Filmstar, der mit Anfang 30 alles zu verlieren scheint: Seine Frau (ein Mega-Star) droht mit Scheidung, er wirkt verloren in einer Theaterproduktion und verliert sich fast selbst in der Dunkelheit. Ich finde die Geschichte lebt vor allem durch die Kulisse und die unzähligen Nebencharakteren, die so lebhaft und menschlich dargestellt wurden. Es gibt keinen Charakter, der in der Geschichte verschwendet wird, und jeder hat seine Zeilen in der Geschichte verdient. Dass die Theaterproduktion und die Proben so detailliert in der Geschichte erfasst wurden, fand ich fantastisch und hat geholfen die Mentalität eines Schauspielers zu verstehen. Ich denke es zeigt sich hier deutlich, dass Ethan Hawke selbst Schauspieler ist. Es gibt Bücher, selten aber es gibt diese, wo man sich denkt, dass es als Hörspiel, Fernsehserie oder Film besser rüberkommen würde. Diese Geschichte war an sich sehr spannend und das Ende hat mich auch berührt, auch wenn es etwas kitschig war. Ich konnte mir jede Szene vor Augen vorstellen, also hat Ethan Hawke echt einen guten Job geleistet. Aber trotzdem kann ich mir das Ganze doch besser als einen Film vorstellen. One hopes all the bad behavior of Harding is NOT based on fact, but most probably SOME of it is. But not everything seems based on real life - the Falstaff in the book is a blowhard actor named Virgil who is immensely fat ... and bears few traces of Kevin Kline, who played it in Hawke's own 2003 production. Likewise, his Lady Percy was the estimable Audra McDonald, and she doesn't seem to fit her fictional counterpart here also. I heard a great radio interview with Ethan Hawke last year around the time this book was published and made a mental note at the time to give the book a go.

I spent many years in the theater as an actor and playwright, so the world of A Bright Ray of Darkness is one I know well. This is one of the best pieces of writing I’ve ever read to convey the art of pretending to be somebody else in a made-up story in front of hundreds of people who, in the best case, suspend their belief that you are really a regular schlub. Add to that the raucous insanity of a bunch of people whose real emotions don’t know the difference between what they’re pretending and being a regular schlub, and even if they do, sometimes they get overwhelmed by the professionally evoked stuff, but, unlike regular schlubs everywhere, these schlubs get distorted by all the applause, so they think what they do is a matter of life and death. The two elements of this story unfold side by side: Harding’s angst ridden struggle to deal with the fact that he’s brought the collapse of his marriage on himself and his desperate effort to deliver a performance worthy of the illustrious cast of seasoned stage actors he’s surrounded by. I loved the way that Hawke was able to bring the theatre scenes alive – both onstage and offstage – it’s brilliantly done. Between performances Harding drinks, fears for his voice, frets for his marriage and yet still finds time to fornicate further. It’s hard to see how he can possibly hold it all together.But still, I liked all the Shakespeare. And what life was like for auditioning, memorizing, practicing, performing, etc. Clearly Hawke knows of what he writes in that case and, for this book, there's the rub (read: value). If you read it, take it for what it is. Lights, action, READ! I admit that I’m fascinated by Ethan Hawke: he acts, directs, writes and whenever I’ve seen him interviewed he’s come across as an engaging raconteur, articulate and thoughtful and with some interesting views on life. He hadn’t written a book in twenty years but in this new novel he documents the plight of a screen actor who is simultaneously dealing with the breakdown of his marriage whilst making his Broadway debut in Shakespeare’s Henry IV. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Hawke is at least as accomplished a writer as he is an actor, since this is his fifth published novel, and he's been nominated for two Oscars for his screenwriting efforts. But I had never read any of his earlier works, so was pleasantly amazed at just how excellent this book is. At least some of it is autobiographical, since this circles around a production of Shakespeare's Henry IV in which 32 y. o. protagonist, bad boy film actor William Harding is making his Broadway debut as Hotspur - and Hawke himself essayed the role in an acclaimed production at Lincoln Center at the same age. The other thread involves Harding's disintegrating marriage to his beautiful and acclaimed pop star wife - and Hawke was going through a painful divorce with HIS superstar wife Uma Thurman at the same time also. Oh lord, can Ethan Hawke write. I kind of wish he weren’t a well-known actor because that gets in the way of him receiving the well-deserved literary admiration people have for, say, Jess Walter and Steve Toltz, whose books I would put on the same shelf next to this one.

I figured I'd hit some plateau that was adulthood---where I believed things would just stay level for about forty years while I would do great work and have interesting experiences---then rather uneventfully I would begin to decay and die. But this was just not the case. I was not on a plateau. I was descending, tripping, stumbling, and burning. My whole being, or personality or self or whatever is supposed to be the seat of me, or the soul behind my eyes, was being boiled away in a giant iron cauldron like the flavor leaving a carrot

A final plaint: The wheels come off a bit 3/4s through when random characters (e.g. Dad) who've barely been mentioned suddenly get dropped into the narrative so they can eat up 20-30 pp. Why bother? Eppure, come scrive il poeta: “preferiremmo andare in rovina piuttosto/ che mutare/ morire piuttosto nella nostra paura/ che salire sulla croce di ogni giorno/ e lasciar morire le nostre illusioni”.