The Hottest State: A Novel (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Yes, it's "that" Ethan Hawke. Ethan Hawke the actor. In this slim debut novel, he tells a coming-of-age tale of a fairly unpleasant young actor from Texas named William who lives in Manhattan and is working his way through an ugly little relationship with a singer/songwriter named Sarah. William's parents married young and split up early and he's not too happy with the world at large. Sarah can't quite make heads or tails of her mother. The pair has sex in the bathroom and talks quite a bit about their relationship. It all has a certain ring of truth, but at this point it's probably safe to say that Hawke's movie agent will probably make a better living off the young actor/writer than Hawke's literary agent. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Player of confused but adorable Gen X Romeos in films like Reality Bites and Before Sunrise, Hawke, 25, is easily conjured up as a stand-in for 21-year-old William Harding, the disaffected narrator of this slim first novel, a boy-meets-girl, girl-dumps-boy saga set in a grungy New York of aspiring actors, writers and singers. That William, a college dropout and budding actor, falls fast and hard for Sarah Wingfield, who fronts a band, teaches preschool and is a bit "funny looking," comes as a revelation to him, given his history of using his good looks for quick sex. Sarah casts William's sexual yearnings?and his white trash boyhood?into sharp relief by reading Adrienne Rich, toting a list of rape statistics and refusing to sleep with him. Their doomed romance is intercut with William's memories of his parents' breakup, of talks with his best friend and of his overheated teen relationship with Samantha, who still flits in and out of his life. When Sarah suddenly, inexplicably rejects him after William returns from making a movie in Paris, he descends into self-loathing and homosexual panic?and trashes his apartment. His callow cynicism about women and his flattened out, '90s rendition of Holden Caulfield ("Samantha wanted to have sex. She wasn't doing me any goddamn favors") grow wearisome. But Hawke's emotionally raw account of a world inescapably contracted is oddly affecting and sure to make many a teenage heart go pit-a-pat. Paperback rights to Vintage; audio rights to Time Warner AudioBooks; author tour.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 208 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (September 30, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0679781358
• ISBN-13: 978-0679781356
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (156 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #950,289 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Good fall-back, you know, if the acting doesn't work out, December 8, 2000

By	Dianna Johnston "Compulsive Reader" (Joplin, MO) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

I was very impressed with Ethan Hawke's writing ability. I thought he wrote a very creative, genuine story. Sad and depressing (would make a good Oprah pick if she picked books about males), but undoubtedly a real love story. Honestly, I was only interested in this novel because I'm a fan of Ethan Hawke, the actor. Now, having read his debut novel, I'm a fan of Ethan Hawke, the writer. A believable, bittersweet, desperate tale about William Harding, who falls in love with an unconventional girl named Sarah after four days together and becomes completely wrapped up in her in the most unhealthy way. This novel is not for the weak of heart. Would make an excellent movie.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars true and unpretentious, June 28, 2002

By	joe koski (about right here) - See all my reviews

I am a little disapointed in all the bad press this book has gotten. I was impressed with it since the first time i saw it in a bookstore, when i flipped through the pages, read one paragraph, and knew that I'd love it.
Granted, I most likely picked it up because it was "the" Ethan Hawke, and if he wasn't "the" Ethan Hawke it most likely wouldn't have gotten the attention it has and I would have never read it, but I feel that his being "the" Ethan Hawke has also kind of made it harder for critics to swallow it. Which is a bummer because really, it's a great book.
Their are two things I loved about this book. One, his writing is unpretentious. He reminds me a lot of Hemmingway in his refreshing lack of detial. You don't get the feeling he's trying to prove he's a writer to the whole world by using as many descriptive words as he knows in every paragraph. The story moves along. It's an easy read, but that's a good thing.
The other thing I like, and this is most important, and really, the one thing I feel he deserves heaps of praise for, is he gets it right! He gets right on how it feels to be 20, stupid and in love. Or even better, in like, confused, and full of lust. Ethan Hawke brilliantly lays out a story (you do get the feeling that it's a little autobiographical) with such insight it's impressive. I'm jealos of his abilaty to create such a insightul portrait of a young man. This is one book that gets it right on.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars The things you do when you're young and stupid!, September 3, 2001

By	Manola Sommerfeld (California) - See all my reviews

Here's a universal truth: at least once in our lives every one of us has fallen in love with the wrong person. And we have fallen in love despite the fact that we knew perfectly well that s/he meant trouble. This usually happens when you are young, at a time when it is almost impossible to reconcile hormones with common sense. There's nothing new here: Shakespeare already dealt with this in Romeo and Juliet, and lots of other authors did it before him. This is the single one thing that Hawke does well in this novel: Portray how incredibly reckless young people are with their lives in the name of "love". If it weren't for the fact that kids in their 20's are never going to listen to anyone, this should be mandatory reading.

William, who turns 21 in the novel, falls in love/lust with Sarah, who is E-X-T-R-E-M-E-L-Y messed up. William gets all head over heels about her, and it becomes obvious very quickly that this story is going to have a bad ending. Sarah has so much rotten baggage that you can chew it in every page. Hawke is a powerful writer in that he is able to elicit strong emotions from the readers. I wanted to slap Sarah over the head so badly! I wanted to tell her: enough with the bull! Then, i would turn around wanting to do the same thing to William. I could almost understand the amounts of devastation that William causes when upset (one more sign of the power of testosterone). He destroys kitchen cabinets, his hand, and even drops his contacts on the floor when they feel uncomfortable!

Some of the writing is very exaggerated and staged. If Hawke makes William speak like that because William is an actor, then OK. However, the climate in some of the situations was not conducive to remembering lines of any kind, so i go for the affectation option. The end of chapter 12, where William tells Sarah: "I've been you, and i know that you suck", must be one of the most unfortunate sentences in XX century American Literature. At the same time, Decker's resolutions for the New Year in Chapter 20 are very wise ("[...] never waste energy degrading someone else. Also, i want to try not to see life as a competition.")

So, this novel is interesting, easy and fast to read, does a fairly good job at portraying how you can over-dramatize a peanut when you're in your early 20's, but at the same time fails to deliver good quality writing, falling for too many cliches.