Semaphore - Hardcover

Joseph Taft has never spoken, though there's no reason why he couldn't. Instead, he has visions, fragments that come to him unannounced and with no explanation of their meaning; yet not even Joe with his foreknowledge can stop the inevitable. After glimpsing an image of his sister, Louise, drowned in a swimming pool, Joe steals a dump truck and fills in the neighbor's backyard pool--in vain, as it turns out, since water-loving Louise dies later in another neighborhood pool designed exactly like the first.

In silence, Joe survives his teen years, learns a trade, and marries Luce. The visions continue, sometimes coming to fruition, other times fading. And in the darkness of a vision in which he raises an axe against his own wife, Joseph bears the burden of truth and the fear that he can't share with any of those who love him. Hawkes pursues the dark side of fortune, the side that illustrates the saying "Be careful what you wish for." --Susan Swartwout

G.W. Hawkes chairs the English department and co-directs the creative writing program at Lycoming College in Williamsport, PA. He has published short stories in magazines such as The Atlantic Monthly, GQ, and Ploughshares as well as in two collections, Spies in the Blue Smoke and Playing Out of the Deep Woods, both from the University of Missouri Press.