Hawk Mountain
A Novel
by Conner Habib
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Pub Date Jul 05 2022 | Archive Date Jun 30 2022
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Description
An English teacher is gaslit by his charismatic high school bully in this tense story of deception, manipulation, and murder.
Single father Todd is relaxing at the beach with his son, Anthony, when he catches sight of a man approaching from the water’s edge. As the man draws closer, Todd recognizes him as Jack, who bullied Todd relentlessly in their teenage years but now seems overjoyed to have “run into” his old friend. Jack suggests a meal to catch up. And can he spend the night?
What follows is a fast-paced story of obsession and cunning. As Jack invades Todd’s life, pain and intimidation from the past unearth knife-edge suspense in the present. Set in a small town on the New England coast, Conner Habib’s debut introduces characters trapped in isolation by the expansive woods and the encroaching ocean, their violence an expression of repressed desire and the damage it can inflict. Both gruesome and tender, Hawk Mountain offers a compelling look at how love and hate are indissoluble, intertwined until the last breath.
About the Author: Conner Habib hosts the podcast Against Everyone with Conner Habib, which covers topics like punk rock, philosophy, pornography, and occultism. His writing has appeared in CR Fashion Book, Best Gay Stories, Slate, and the Stranger. He lives in Dublin, Ireland.
Advance Praise
"Conner Habib’s debut novel is a bleak, dark adrenaline rush." - Clive Barker
"Dripping with menace from the first page, this story of childhood enemies meeting up fifteen years later is utterly enthralling.… [C]ompelling, shocking, and beautiful." - Liz Nugent, author of Lying in Wait
"A deeply disturbing yet, somehow, soaring novel I won’t soon forget. It plumbs the depths of traumatized characters trapped within our damaging culture. I couldn’t look away, even when I was looking from between my fingers." - Paul Tremblay, author of A Head Full of Ghosts and The Pallbearers Club
"The opening lines of Hawk Mountain plummet you into an atmosphere of creeping dread and precarious restraint that won’t let up until the final, shocking moments." - Caitlin Doughty, bestselling author of Smoke Gets In Your Eyes
"Hawk Mountain is deft horror, made of precise strikes into our most vulnerable psychic terrain… Finally, a horror story that knows cisheteropatriarchy is the villain!" - Andrea Lawlor, author of Paul Takes the Form of a Mortal Girl
"Conner Habib writes with [a] hallucinatory precision, and a kind of merciless humanity, about the poisonous work of repression. His forebears—Poe, Highsmith, even classical tragedy—are clear, but his originality is clearer still. Hawk Mountain is a work of strange, glittering darkness." - Mark O’Connell, author of Notes from an Apocalypse
"A brilliantly disturbing, expertly crafted literary noir that will stick with you long after you put it down. Conner Habib has written a flawless meditation on the fruitless, but eternally human, effort to kill off the parts of ourselves we cannot love—literally and metaphorically. I love this book." - Sara Gran, author of The Infinite Blacktop
"A moving and unflinching portrayal of a man caught in a trap of his own making, but willing to do almost anything—to almost anybody—if it will keep him from having to face up to himself. Hawk Mountain is a?wonderfully bleak and beautifully written debut." - Brian Evenson, author of Song for the Unraveling of the World
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9780393542172 |
| PRICE | $26.95 (USD) |
Available on NetGalley
Featured Reviews
Brianna F, Reviewer
I was not prepared for the ride this book took me on. You ever watch a scene in a movie where a character just SNAPS out of nowhere and then all of a sudden it shows the character was just zoning out? Well our initial plot twist was so sudden and intense that I genuinely felt that was the case, but I was wrong. That snap heralded such a tone change for the better part of this read to a point that I quite literally stayed up until 2am to finish reading.
Read. This. Book.
Russ M, Media/Journalist
Hawk Mountain starts completely unassumingly and builds, builds, builds, from dread into white-knuckled, wide-eyed terror, and burns away into an ending that I'm still thinking about.
Brian G, Librarian
No matter how uncomfortable this book made me feel, it was difficult to stop reading. Hawk Mountain is a story of secrets and lies, masculinity and torment. Things take a turn for the worse for Todd, a single father, when his high school bully, abruptly comes back into his life. Jack forces himself into Todd's life, stays at Todd's place, creates a father-like relationship with Anthony, Todd's son. We watch a brutal unraveling as Todd tries to escape his past and the feelings that come with it.
Summer H, Educator
This story will keep you on the edge of your seat. Talk about a page-turner!! Good luck being able to put this one down once you start it! Can't wait to read more by Conner Habib!
Rachel D, Reviewer
This book was brilliant. Deals with a lot of harsh emotions. If you have ever dealt with a bully, this books is for you.
Abigail J, Reviewer
4.5 stars
Living your life numb and grudged.
This was brilliant. Conner Habib knocked it out of the park with this debut! I was engaged from the start. This book touches on topics of bullying, abuse, mental health, sexual identity, manipulation, and grief. Mainly focusing on the effects of what constant harassment and neglect can build within a person.
This story follows Todd and his son, Anthony, in the aftereffects of moving back to Todd's hometown to start over and get back to living, many years after his divorce from Livia who walked out on a life with him and her child. When someone from Todd's high school days, Jack, comes barreling back into his life. Piece by piece the suppressed anger and mask slowly chip away. Livia comes knocking—decided she finally wants a relationship with Anthony. Stress, grudges, and accusations cause turmoil and a crack in Todd's state of mind. Will everything he does finally give him ease?
Mary Kay S, Librarian
This was a five-star debut read. I love literary fiction that is also secretly horror, when that isn't how it's billed. (Mexican Gothic, A Touch of Jen, The Paper Wasp). This one had these great facets of body horror that came on all at once in the middle. This is a fun book to booktalk (I've done this at least five times already), because the beginning frames such a menacing story, and the creepiness and menace don't stop there. You get a real Ripley vibe. I have felt the need to "warn" people that there is a horror element because that is not how this book is billed, and not everyone likes that. The overall story is really more of a literary thriller. I loved how the author worked the narrative as the main character began to spin out of control -- the memories section started to sort of bleed into the present day narrative, so they became one. There was a great buildup to the story of Jack and Todd in high school, and I truly did not guess how that piece would resolve. But, it was perfect. Five stars. Thank you so much!!!
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