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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
More Than Meets the Eye, August 15, 2003
Hot sex? Sleazy sex? Group sex? Gang rape? Dominatrix, "slave," hero (NOT heroine), heroine (NOT hero), protector, abuser, warrior, traitor? Nighthawk includes them all--and more. Beneath the simmering sexcapades lies a dark warning: people who objectify other people--who see them as sex objects, as possessions, or as symbols only--cause deep damage to themselves and to their particular societies, cultures, and sub-cultures.Hawk the defender, when we first meet her, enforces her version of the medieval "droit du seigneur": she gets one round with each new girlfriend of any group member; the other women do not question that right, and Threecloud's failure to comply sets up the plot for the novel. And it takes the rest of the novel for Hawk to realize that she and her group actually DE-value women by following such a custom; that, in fact, she has cut herself off from true intimacy by so doing. Hawk's struggle toward--and against--self-knowledge forms the real battle in the book; the sorties against other gangs merely underscore that psychological strife. Hawk protects "her" turf, even the males who dwell therein--but she allows gang rape of the woman with whom she is falling in love. She risks death and mutilation to defend "her" people--but she allows that same woman to be brutalized by the psychopathic Tattoo. Although Artemis Oakgrove frequently succumbs to every writer's temptation to use "the easy way out" (stereotypes), by the end of the novel the reader can perceive a more believable Hawk: a Hawk with more than two dimensions; a Hawk who finally faces her own vulnerability; a Hawk who begins to see others not as her collective flock or cherished property (or as enemies or obstructions) but as individuals. Underneath the violent, furious, almost-brutal Hawk lies a woman with soul and sensitivity. Underneath the stormy, steamy, sleazy sex of Nighthawk lies a sinister glimpse of what a society which fails to recognize people as INDIVIDUALS can become.
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by Artemis OakGrove
