ANGELICA’S GROTTO previewed in Publishing News.

Welcome to the upturned world of Harold Klein, 72. His bizarre handicap lands him in casualty, seeing a shrink and turning from his research as an eminent art historian to pornography on the internet. Through the pornographic website — Angelica’s Grotto — he encounters Melissa and Leslie who treat sex as a pure psychological study. "You’re a tiger from the neck up, Professor," says Melissa, the brains behind the website, when at last he faces the object of his desire. Klein’s attempts to cope with his lack of self-censorship and his new-found frenzied sexual activity — both virtual and real — rapidly escalate out of control.

In the vein of William Boyd and John Irving, Russell Hoban has written a modern classic. Compelling, poignant and very funny, Angelica’s Grotto is an unnervingly honest portrait of male sexuality and a challenge to society’s stereotype of ‘the dirty old man’ not up to much physically but with a lot of sex going on in his head.

Russell Hoban was born in 1925 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He served in the U.S. Infantry during WWII and worked in New York and Connecticut teaching art and working as a freelance illustrator and an advertising copywriter. He is the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Riddley Walker and most recently Mr Rinyo-Clacton’s Offer. He has also written some classic children’s books including The Mouse and his Child and The Frances Books. He has lived in London since 1969.

For further information/interview requests, please contact:

Katie Collins, Tel: 0171 494 6012 & Email:katie_collins@bloomsbury.com