Beetle Leg

John Hawkes (1925–1998) was a postmodern novelist born in Stamford, Connecticut, and educated at Harvard University. He was noted for his unconventional style and views on the creation of literature and was admired by Flannery O’Connor, Robert Penn Warren, Saul Bellow, Anthony Burgess, Jeffrey Eugenides, and Donald Barthelme.

"The mixture of pity and exhilaration in the human condition is recreated with chilling authenticity by Hawkes. His is a search into the pit that stops at no amount of terrifying discovery. Admitting everything, rejecting nothing, Hawkes writes from a viewpoint held by few American authors."