Stock photo.

Hamilton Stark

by Russell Banks

Available editions of Hamilton Stark

	9780060977054, Paperback, Harpercollins, 1996 $1.92 (Good) Other copies of 9780060977054
	9780395264713, Book, Houghton Mifflin, 1978 $3.15 (Used, Very Good) Other copies of 9780395264713
	9780345330758, Paperback, Ballantine Books, 1986 $1.00 (Used, Good) Other copies of 9780345330758

Publisher Notes

The narrator searches for the true identity of Hamilton Stark, a pipefitter by profession, a New Englander by heredity, an accidental philanderer, and a purposeful anti-hero who has rejected five wives and his only daughter.

Media Reviews

"You won't like Hamilton Stark...He's a mean drunk who hates cats, dogs, and people...And perhaps most annoying of all, he never appears in this novel named after him...'Hamilton Stark' is a murder mystery/memoir/biography whose apparent purpose is to explore the ambiguous charm of Hamilton Stark. The story is told by an unnamed narrator [who is] obsessed with Hamilton Strk...Banks has skillfully used his repertoire of contemporary techniques to write a novel that is classically American--a dark, but sometimes funny, romance with echoes of Poe and Melville."

First Line

It didn't occur to me to write a novel with A. as the prototype for its hero, Hamilton Stark, until fairly recently, a year ago this spring, when I drove the forty miles from my home in Northwood across New Hampshire to his home outside the town of B. Upon written invitation (via post card, as was his habit), I was on my way to visit him for the afternoon and possibly the evening.

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