#121. "The Punch" by Noah Hawley

For most people, Noah Hawley is best known for his work on TV. Shows like Fargo and Legion find him exploring the limitless potential of what serialization can provide. With a colorful cast of characters, he's continually pushing boundaries and discovering something more sublime buried underneath. However, there's something more curious to be found in his fiction, notably the stripped-down gimmicks that focus instead on dysfunctional families. "The Punch" is a book that sounds like a very tired tale of a family coming to terms with devastating events. Even if that's true, Hawley has proven himself to be a great writer no matter where his page lies, and here he brings a colorful personality to characters each emotionally devoid of something inside. It's a series of character studies that are at times delightful and at others tragic. As a whole, "The Punch" lives up to its title by having the moments that resonate be painful, like a punch to the gut. It's a familiar story, but one so personal that it's difficult to not appreciate.

If there's anything that makes "The Punch" immediately worth a read, it's the opening pages. Hawley has a gift for taking the mundane observation of a waiting room and highlighting these perverse details that seem to have an emotionally dissonant effect on the characters. With so much misery in the world, why is this one detail here? There's the sense that nobody truly cares about your struggles even in a place known for harboring the most terrifying days for many parties. It's difficult to believe that the happiness will ever return, and Hawley's emphasis on depression and connection in the pages ahead allows for a sense of community to form, but not before everyone finding ways to distance themselves.

Through a very accessible writing style, Hawley manages to create characters who are finding answers in all of the wrong places. Along with visits to strip clubs that result in distorted relationships, there's a lot of irrational behavior that unfolds and the desire to solve it all continues to spiral. This isn't a chaotic book but one that is so rooted in familiar human behavior that it's easy to feel like nothing is out of place. Every few chapters produces some philosophical revelation, finding them coming not conveniently but when characters aren't likely to notice. There's an effort to find joy and meaning, but Hawley isn't always direct in his approach. Like some punches, they come unexpectedly. They will bruise and linger within the body. One has to wonder what it all means, and the results speak beautifully of that human condition.

Even when it may seem slight, "The Punch" is a book that shows the promise of Hawley as a novelist. He has a gift for writing characters that have depth and meaning while also having the potential to be unlikeable. It's such a commonplace tale that it at times feels unexceptional, but that's where he really connects with the reader. This is a contemporary family drama, and one that manages to convey the difficulty of a family taught to distance themselves from each other as something plausible. How does one put that aside and start anew with a more positive outlook? It's not always easy and for some may never happen, but at least starting that dialogue will start to make any difference. All that they have to do is try.