by Ethan Hawke
First published 2021
The narrator stands in the wings of a Broadway theater, his personal life in ruins. His marriage has collapsed, leaving him disgusted with himself and grasping for a reconciliation that might restore his sense of worth. He stumbles through the wreckage with whisky and desperate encounters, half-hoping to numb the shame that follows him everywhere. But he has landed a role in a Shakespeare production, his first time on Broadway, working under a brilliant director who demands everything from his actors. Night after night, he must transform his torment into art, finding in the theater's grimy shadows and blazing footlights something he cannot locate in his demolished personal world. The stage becomes his refuge and his crucible, where the discipline of performance offers a path toward redemption. As he claws his way deeper into his character, he discovers that the moral power of art might be the only thing capable of saving him from himself.
Genres: fiction, drama, literary-fiction, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: redemption-arc, unreliable-narrator
Setting: Broadway
Period: 21st-century
256 pages · Paperback · William Heinemann
Content warnings: alcohol-abuse, depression, mental-illness