The Lime Twig - Paperback

by John Hawkes (Author), Patrick McGrath (Introduction by), Robert Coover (Preface by)

Three early novels by John Hawkes

Back Jacket

For nearly fifty years and in more than fourteen novels, John Hawkes has been creating his "landscapes of the imagination" and enriching the form and language of the American novel. Bringing together three early novels, this volume displays Hawkes's mastery as a prose stylist and the range and power of his gifts as an innovative writer. The Lime Twig (1961), set in postwar London, is the story of a young man who, unwittingly involved with the underworld, comes face to face with the violence and decay of contemporary society. Second Skin (1964) is a tale of suicide and new life on two mythical islands - one demonic, the other idyllic - and is a comic, magical evocation of The Tempest. Travesty (1976) is a portrait of the ultimate artist, a harrowing monologue on fear and eroticism that takes place during a drive at night in Southern France.

Author Biography

John Hawkes is the author of sixteen books of fiction, including bi>Sweet William, Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade, and The Blood Oranges (all available from Penguin). He is Professor of English Emeritus at Brown University and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters. He lives in Providence, Rhode Island.

Robert Coover is widely regarded as one of America's most influential living writers, author of some fifteen groundbreaking books of fiction, including Pricksongs & Descants, The Public Burning, and most recently Ghost Town. Coover has for the past decade been teaching experimental courses in hypertext and multimedia narrative at Brown University. His 1992 essay on hypertext in the New York Times Book Review, "The End of Books," galvanized electronic literature fans around the world.