John Hawkes, Travesty

Rita Ferrari (Independent Scholar - North America)

Ed. by Emory Elliott, University of California, Riverside
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.4: American (US) Writing and Culture: Postwar and Contemporary, 1945-present.
Vol. editors: Sofia Ahlberg (Uppsala University), Patrick Chura (University of Akron), Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Dale Enggass (University of Utah), Christopher Hugh Gair (University of Glasgow), Matthew Hofer (University of New Mexico), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Justin Parks (UiT - The Arctic University of Norway), Nick Selby (University of East Anglia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1976

Places

United States (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

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John Hawkes's novel

Travesty

(1976) is a one-hundred-and-twenty-eight page monologue spoken by “Papa” as he drives his sports car “at one hundred and forty-nine kilometers per hour on a country road in the darkest quarter of the night”, heading deliberately for a stone wall a meter thick. His passengers and audience are his twenty-five-year-old daughter, Chantal, who huddles on the floor in the back of the car vomiting, and his best friend, Henri, who sits wheezing in the passenger seat. As he speeds, Papa tries to account for his existence and his drive to end it: “Who does not fear the inexplicable fact of his existence?” he asks. “Who does not dread the unimaginable condition of not existing?” But he rejects Henri's suggestion that his suicidal and murderous drive is…

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2399 words

Citation: Ferrari, Rita. "Travesty". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 08 January 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=8445, accessed 27 November 2024.]

John Hawkes, Travesty

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