Hoban's first book for adults mixes playful fantasy with an insightful meditation on fathers and sons
On his death in 2011, The Times described Russell Hoban as 'perhaps
the most consistently strange writer of the late 20th century'. He
thought and wrote in an extraordinary range of genres, becoming
first a bestselling writer of children's books, particularly the
immortal Frances stories and his first novel, The Mouse and His
Child (1968). After its publication he continued to write for
children (most notably perhaps the Captain Najork books with
Quentin Blake and The Marzipan Pig), but focussed most of his
energies on a sequence of wonderful novels, which began with The
Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973) and ended with Angelica
Lost and Found (2010). He also wrote the libretto for Harrison
Birtwistle's opera The Second Mrs Kong (1994).
His novels were wildly various, but share his obsession with
objects, animals, specific works of art and pieces of music, his
love of words and sense of humour. Penguin Modern Classics
publishes his first eight novels- The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and
Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary, Riddley Walker, Pilgermann,
The Medusa Frequency, Fremder and Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer.
Magic at work ... Funny as well as beautiful.
*Irish Times*
Amazingly, the mythology is sustained in totally modern terms,
desolate, comic and urban.
*Time Out*
A piece of invention as original as any of Tolkien's or C.S.
Lewis's.
*New Statesman*
Worth rejoicing in ... a banquet of whimsical delights. Each
Russell Hoban book is surprising ... but you also know what you're
getting, which is curiosity, wonder and a world-encompassing
empathy.
*The Guardian*
Mr. Hoban is unclassifiable, thank goodness. His narrative is so
minutely and compellingly realistic that after a time you cease to
notice that he has stood reality on its head.
*Sunday Times*
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