By Clare Gabriel BBC News Online

Ash Wednesday has a cyclical format, beginning with a death and ending with a new life. In between, it embraces much of the heartbreak of young love.

The novel represents a life journey of sorts for actor-cum-writer Ethan Hawke, who uses his work to confront the life issues which concern many of those easing out of their 20s into their 30s.

Why are we really here and what does it matter anyway? These are the questions the 31-year-old actor, husband of Uma Thurman and father to two young children, seems to be asking.

But he does it with a fast-moving, natural dialogue which cannot fail to entertain.

The book is Hawke's second novel

His hero (or is it anti-hero?) is a disillusioned and aptly named US army staff sergeant Jimmy Heartsock, aged 31, who thinks he is in love and is about to unwittingly become a father.

But he still has to come to terms with the suicide of his Vietnam veteran father; indeed it was his death that propelled him into the forces several years before.

Heartsock relies on recreational drugs to get him through the darker moments in life, including telling the family of a young serviceman he has been killed in a bar brawl.

Heartsock's opposite number is his pregnant girlfriend Christy Walker, who is from a different background altogether - middle class, middle America, with a womanising father and a mother who walked out when she was a baby.

After a rocky proposal in a frozen car park, they take a car journey together across mid-state USA back to Jimmy's roots, to get married and confront reality en route.

Much of the book is based on personal experience

Heartsock seeks out the religion he was forced to endure as a child (hence the religious connotations of the book's title) and Christy finally realises that she does want to spend her life with this juvenile man.

It is an everyday story of everyday life, happening no doubt to thousands of couples across the US.

What carries it through is the strength of Hawke's characterisation and the crisp, up-front dialogue.

By writing both in the persona of Jimmy and his girlfriend Christy, Hawke is able to give the reader a dual perspective.

The novel offers a cathartic experience - I suspect for the writer as well as the reader.

Ash Wednesday is published on 5 September by Bloomsbury.