At Magnuson Park last week, Ethan Hawke read the entire first chapter of his second novel, Ash Wednesday, and then he took mostly inane questions from an audience of about 200 mostly inane people. He then got a beer (I.P.A.) and went to relieve himself. He took the beer into the bathroom with him.
For the next hour, Mr. Hawke autographed everyone’s copy of the book (memorabilia, disallowed, would be “pried from your hands”) and answered questions like “Does your hand get tired signing all these books?” (“No”) and “Did you really smoke pot with Denzel?” (“No way”). Mr. Hawke said, “Denzel doesn’t smoke any grass.”
Mr. Hawke received unsolicited criticism (“You sounded a little nervous reading, but not too bad”) and praise (“Dude, I love Gattaca!”), and stared blankly when girls with bare midriffs and names like Hilary and Tif (“That’s one ‘f'”) said things like “My friend and I like Reality Bites the best.”
One guy said, “I love the Rolling Stones,” and Mr. Hawke said simply, “Me too. See you later.” Another guy, a dead ringer for Hawke himself, said, “Hey, dig your shirt, man.” To which Mr. Hawke replied, “Dig yours.” To which the look-alike replied, “Yeah, man.”
A married couple came up with their two dogs. “They’ve seen all your movies,” the man said, on behalf of the dogs. “Twice,” his wife said. “At least twice,” the man said.
One woman told Mr. Hawke that he had inspired her to go to Switzerland. Hawke smiled blankly. Another woman, completely kidding herself in tight floral-print pants, said, “How’s that big beautiful wife of yours?”—meaning Uma Thurman, who is married to Mr. Hawke and who has, to our knowledge, never before in history been described as “big.” Mr. Hawke said, “She’s great.” The tight floral pants-wearing lady said, “I knew it. I just knew it.”
Ash Wednesday is dedicated to the Hindu goddess for whom Uma is named. It is itself a novel about marriage and “the whole exploration of the self, you know?” as one girl put it.
Mr. Hawke said of his influences, “When I was 14, Catcher in the Rye changed my life. When I was 18, On the Road changed my life. Go Tell It on the Mountain kind of devastated me. And if you don’t have the new Wilco record, you should go buy it.”
Whether Ash Wednesday will change lives or devastate remains to be seen. Two ladies were waiting in line for the bathroom. One said, “Have you read the book?” The other said, “No. No one has.”
