Before his marriage publicly exploded, he’d signed on to play Hotspur in a lavish production of Shakespeare’s “Henry IV. He tells a great story that ripples with all that human intestinal squishy stuff we don’t want anybody else to see. Having read his other work––his second book Ash Wednesday being a letdown (for me)––this just blew my mind! These cookies help provide information on metrics the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc. 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.

Hawke is a genius at conjuring the hush of the auditorium, the thrill of live actors, the magical sense of a performance moving through time. When William arrives at his New York hotel, the front desk greets him: “Wow, look who it is, Hester Prynne herself. At least some of it is autobiographical, since this circles around a production of Shakespeare's Henry IV in which 32 y. Ethan Hawke really has got some fuckin balls, writing a novel in 2021 about the plight of the wealthy white man.It's about an actor (well, duh) performing Shakespeare ( Henry IV) on Broadway as he is coming off a divorce to a big-time pop singer. I'm not sure what it was exactly, because the thought of reading a book about an actor starring in his first broadway play, doing Shakespeare of all things, while in the midst of a third-life crisis, didn't sound super up my alley. And I only remember two actors from that movie -- Robin Williams as the teacher standing on the desk and the kid who ultimately offs himself at the end (tall, thin, dark haired, and most certainly not Ethan Hawke). I could live the rest of my days without reading another woe-is-me, pretentious, downward-spiral novel written by a white, cis, hetero man.

The writing is lyrical and poetic, a worthy front stage drama set against a New York staging of the Bard's Henry IV.Among the best scenes are Harding's discussions with his young children, adding pathos to the break up of his marriage.