BERNARD L. SCHWARTZ
Ethan Hawke tapes audio edition of acclaimed novel 'Gilead'
NEW YORK – When she learned that Ethan Hawke was working on a special audio edition of her acclaimed novel “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson's response was to get a better idea of who he was. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 2005, ”Gilead” is the first of four Robinson novels set in a rural Iowa community in the 1950s. Hawke has recorded an abridged narrative of “Gilead” that was commissioned by Manhattan's 92nd Street Y and can he heard Oct. 19-29 via www.92y.org/gilead. “In ‘Gilead,’ the Reverend John Ames contemplates ‘grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials,'" he said. ‘Gilead' is a great American novel, and Ethan Hawke is a great American actor."