The search for Harry Hardiner continues...

For the better part of two decades, a novelist and a playwright has been missing. He vanished under mysterious circumstances, leaving a ten-part series one maddening book short and a bloom of questions in his wake. Every stone turned reveals two more beneath. A web of shady acquaintances, a reputation for eccentricity, a nebulous provenance, and work that verges on the ritualistic. And yet many of you reading this have never even heard of Harry Hardiner.

Much of this was by the author's design. In his 11 active years, he conducted four interviews; three of them were with critic Rex Patch. In them, he apparently lied about his background (there is no town in Tennessee called Bookbright, and though a tight-fisted trust controls his estate, no one has ever located his parents or the brothers he referenced), he refuses to directly answer questions about his work, and he claims it's simply impossible for him to talk about his future projects. There was nothing marketable about Hardiner's work: it is convoluted, oblique, aggressively stylized, and almost overwhelmingly bleak. He never sought partnerships in Hollywood or New York, and none of his plays were produced before he disappeared. Even the timing of his disappearance in the news was off—neighbors reported seeing lights in the sky above the Hardiner property in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and the smell of smoke in the very early hours of December 31, 1999. There is not even a story in The Tennessean that next day, or the next, reporting the disappearance. A prolific writer had vanished in a puff of smoke, and no one noticed.

Over the years, what little interest was piqued by the mystery has mainly faded. And I personally think that's a shame. In the spirit of the original Harry Hunters, I'm opening this portion of the site to bring Harry Hardiner back into the light—if not in the flesh, then at least a little through his work.

The following links will take you to pages devoted to more information about Harry Hardiner, his works (including the possibly-unfinished Rosewire series), and the people who search for him out in the field and within his twisted lines. A very special thank you is owed to Rex Patch for his assistance in compiling this information—his editorial eye (with the personal insights he so graciously contributed!) was invaluable in building the Harry Hardiner primer and the Rodonymatology page. Without you, Dr Patch, this site would not be up right now.