HAWKES, JOHN

born Aug. 17, 1925, Stamford, Conn., U.S. died May 15, 1998, Providence, R.I. in full John Clendennin Burne Hawkes, Jr. American author whose novels achieve a dreamlike (often nightmarish) intensity through the suspension of traditional narrative constraints. He considered a story's structure his main concern; in one interview he stated that plot, character, and theme are the true enemies of the novel. Hawkes attended Harvard University (B.A., 1949) and taught there from 1949 to 1958; for the next 30 years he taught at Brown University. His first novel, The Cannibal (1949), depicts harbingers of a future apocalypse amid the rubble of postwar Germany. The Beetle Leg (1951) is a surreal parody of the pulp western. In 1954 he published two novellas, The Goose on the Grave and The Owl, both set in Italy. With The Lime Twig (1961), a dark thriller set in postwar London, Hawkes attracted the critical attention that would place him in the front rank of avant-garde, postmodern American writers. His next novel, Second Skin (1964), is the first-person confessional of a retired naval officer. The Blood Oranges (1971; filmed 1997), Death, Sleep, & the Traveler (1974), and Travesty (1976) explore the concepts of marriage and freedom to unsettling effect. The Passion Artist (1979) and Virginie: Her Two Lives (1982) are tales of sexual obsession. Hawkes's later works include Adventures in the Alaskan Skin Trade (1985), whose narrator is a middle-aged woman; Whistlejacket (1988); Sweet William: A Memoir of Old Horse (1993), written in the voice of a horse; The Frog (1996); and An Irish Eye (1997), whose narrator is a 13-year-old female orphan. He also published The Innocent Party (1966), a collection of short plays, and Lunar Landscapes (1969), a volume of short stories and novellas. Humors of Blood & Skin: A John Hawkes Reader was published in 1984.