The Innocent Party: Four Short Plays

by John Hawkes

Book by Hawkes, John

239 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1966

About the author

John Hawkes, born John Clendennin Talbot Burne Hawkes, Jr., was a postmodern American novelist, known for the intensity of his work, which suspended the traditional constraints of the narrative.

Born in Stamford, Connecticut, and educated at Harvard University, Hawkes taught at Brown University for thirty years. Although he published his first novel, The Cannibal, in 1949, it was The Lime Twig (1961) that first won him acclaim. Later, however, his second novel, The Beetle Leg, an intensely surrealistic western set in a Montana landscape that T. S. Eliot might have conjured, came to be viewed by many critics as one of the landmark novels of 20th Century American literature.

Hawkes died in Providence, Rhode Island.

Reviews

[Joyce · Rating 2 out of 5]

Sadly not very good. Hawkes is a master of prose, not of character and dialogue, which is all plays are. He seemed to think of the time spent on these as a somewhat regretful holiday from his real work himself. One of them does open with perhaps the most memorable image in theatre however: a man sat on a toilet with a gun against his head

[Danilo · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a horrible book. None of the plays have any hint of plot and the dialogue os so bad it puts me to bed. Don't bother reading this crap. It's not worth it

[R.K. Cowles · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 1/2 stars