Will the Real John Twelve Hawks Please Stand Up?

When you do something like my Bookosphere posts every day you tend to notice patterns that otherwise might escape notice. The most recent thing I’ve noticed is something I’m calling the “John Twelve Hawks Mystery.”

Over the last seven days two separate people I know have received letters via post from a person (or persons) claiming to be the notoriously reclusive author John Twelve Hawks. The first person who received contact from someone claiming to be the author was writer Jeff VanderMeer. Seemingly, it was in response to a joke Jeff has posted on July 1about downgrading Twelve Hawks to Eleven Turkeys unless he revealed his identity. Jeff received a letter in the mail, handwritten, that said “Jeff, I went to your house and knocked on your door, but you weren’t home…Best, John Twelve Hawks.” The envelope is post-dated July 2, New York, NY. The return address appears to be “Penthouse, 1140 Broadway, NYC, NY,10001.” A quick Google search reveals that this is the address of Regal Literary, Inc., a literary agency that does indeed include John Twelve Hawks among its clients. The letter arrived on July 5, which would seem to indicate that Twelve Hawks or someone pretending to be him read Jeff’s blog entry and dropped the letter in the mail that very day, or the day afterwards as indicated by the post mark (which could have been stamped later if the letter was placed in the mail late on the day of July 1. Most amazing to me is how quickly the letter arrived, given that July 4 – a Friday – was an official holiday.

The second contact supposedly from John Twelve Hawks was directed at litblogger and journalist Edward Champion, who posted the following message on his blog, July 11:

An Open Reply to John Twelve Hawks

“Dear Mr. Hawks:

I feel uncomfortable typing those last two words — “Mr. Hawks,” that is — because it provides the faint hope that I might be channeling Howard’s great spirit or addressing an eccentric falconer. But I have received your message. I have my considerable doubts about whether you are indeed the John Twelve Hawks who lives off the grid. For if you are aware of my work, surely this runs counter to your secular manifesto? Or is this all the secular marketing whipped up by others? Whatever the case, if you are who you say you are, I accept your proposal, although I’m sure both of us have plenty of time left to live. If you wish to follow through with your idea, then you can send me another message at some future point with additional details and I will confirm it all here. Rest assured, as a man of my word, I shall not reveal your secret identity. Although I must confess that I was highly amused by the envelope and the postmark. You have friends in very interesting places, sir.

Very truly yours,

Edward Champion”

Ed’s post indicates that he, too, received a message of some sort via post. Like me, Ed expresses some skepticism regarding the letter’s authenticity, positing that it might be a marketing scheme to promote John Twelve Hawk’s latest book, “The Dark River.” Ed further offers the very valid question of how an author who purports to live “off the grid” might be aware of the work of a litblogger, and makes a cryptic statement about having plenty of time left to live.

While I’ve not spoken with Ed yet about the letter, I tend to agree with him that this is in all likelihood part of a viral marketing campaign, or at the very least, a practical joke. I strongly suspect the former. Ironically, at least one person who knew my love for practical jokes suspected that I was the one behind the entire thing, a theory that I can categorically deny. I should also state for the record that although I am indeed a book publicist, this is no campaign of mine. I must confess that I’ve never read anything by Twelve Hawks, and have no relation in that capacity with either his publisher Random House or his representatives at Regal Literary.

I have my own theory about John Twelve Hawks, of course. Mine is that he is actually a “they.” I suspect that John Twelve Hawks is the pen name of more than one author, working in collaboration, and the John Twelve Hawks identity is nothing more than a brilliant marketing invention – perfect, I might add – to promote books of such a conspiratorial and dystopian nature as these are supposed to be.

At this point, I’ve not seen any more reports of missives from John Twelve Hawks, but I wouldn’t be surprised if a few more start trickling down through the ranks of lesser literary bloggers over the next few months. After all, that’s how I’d do it if I had a book to promote like this.