Jobie's Favorites

Favorite Book:
Tough to pick just one, but most certainly one of the following four:

  • A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley
  • A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway
  • The Road by Cormac McCarthy
  • The Risk Pool by Richard Russo

Favorite Writer:
Again, tough to pick just one. But here's a list of authors I keep coming back to:

  • Frederick Exley
  • Richard Russo
  • Cormac McCarthy
  • Ernest Hemingway
  • John Steinbeck
  • F. Scott Fitzgerald
  • Charles Bukowski
  • John Fante
  • John Irving
  • J. M. Coetzee
  • Kent Haruf

Favorite Time to Write:
While each day varies, I prefer working from nine in the morning until about three or four in the afternoon. Not too early, not too late. Some mornings, however, I oversleep, or feel sluggish and drag my feet a few hours before starting, sometimes not until after noon. While on other days I find myself still at my desk at ten o'clock at night wondering where in the hell the day went. Some days the words come easily, other days I have to pry them out with the effort of a dentist pulling teeth. I never really know what kind of day it's going to be until I sit down and get on with it.

“At Dawn is the brave, rare sort of novel that finds extraordinary meaning in ordinary lives. The characters are beautifully complex, honorable and compassionate, and yet, like so many of us, deeply flawed and emotionally scarred. The writing is clean and sharp and vivid, and in reading Jobie Hughes I’m reminded of the tremendous power of simple honesty in storytelling. This is a fine book by a fine writer.”

James Brown
Author of The Los Angeles Diaries and This River

“Hughes' debut novel, At Dawn, follows a former All-American wrestler, and is there any better metaphor for contemporary American life? We're all wrestling, tussling with the economy, no jobs, doing the best we can. Hughes doesn't flinch from the tough existential questions. He embraces them.”

Joshua Mohr
Author of Damascus

“Hughes combines coming-of-age tale, portrait of the artist as a young man, and father-son saga in a well-crafted novel...[with] pathos, wit, and insight into the relationships that define our lives.”

Publishers Weekly
Review

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