Hoban News Archive
Items through October 8, 1998
For current items, see the main News page
Posted October 8, 1998:
Here's the best news I've gotten to post on this page yet: it appears that not only is the cruel unavailability of early Hoban novels here in the US finally coming to an end, but Mr. Rinyo-Clacton will also be making an overdue appearance on these shores. I'll let Mr. Hoban break the good news in his own words:
"HEAD OF ORPHEUS visitors might be pleased to know that Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer, having been rejected by Doubleday, Dutton, Farrar Straus, Harcourt Brace, Holt, Houghton Mifflin, Knopf, Little Brown, Morrow, Putnam's, Simon & Schuster, HarperCollins, Picador, Hyperion, Dial, Avon, Metropolitan, and Ballantine, has finally found a home at the Indiana University Press. It will be in a Hoban Omnibus along with The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Turtle Diary, Pilgermann, selections from The Moment Under the Moment, and The Marzipan Pig, to be published in the fall of 1999."
Is that cheering I hear? The good folks at IU Press certainly deserve a big round of applause from Hoban fans everywhere. Maybe it's 'cause I don't get out much, but at this moment I can think of few things more exciting than seeing books like Turtle Diary and The Lion back on the shelves here in the States. And as any one who's actually read The Moment Under The Moment knows, Mr. Hoban's essays are some of his very best work, so I'm particularly pleased that some of that material will at last be available in the US (and to the rest of the world via import, since I believe Moment is now out of print in the UK).
But we Hoban fans mustn't rest on our laurels. The continuing success of this trend toward getting Mr. Hoban back in print inevitably depends on how well these books sell once they're available. And the truth of the matter is that IU Press is an academic press and doesn't get the same distribution as the huge corporate publishers. Many bookstores won't get the new expanded Riddley Walker in, and might not even know it exists, unless customers ask for it. So please, even if you've ordered a copy through the mail, stop by your local bookshops and ask them if they'll be getting in the new Riddley. After all, it doesn't do much good for it to be back in print if readers can't find it. (For more info on the Expanded Edition of Riddley Walker, see the item below posted September 6.)
If you're in the Chicago area like me, one bookstore that is carrying the new Riddley is the excellent independent shop Unabridged Books (in my opinion Chicago's best bookstore). Why? Because I went in and pestered them about it. See? It works. Unabridged can be reached at (773) 883-9119.
Also, Indiana University Press now has their Fall Catalog online, with a page for Riddley at http://www.indiana.edu/~iupress/fall98/hoban.html, with a description, review quotes and ordering info.
Finally, a bit of bad news for the US fans: you might recall that Mr. Hoban had been planning a trip to the US this fall, with speaking engagements at Harvard, Yale and a few other places. Unfortunately, Mr. Hoban has had to cancel his trip for health reasons. Instead, he'll be staying in London and concentrating on finishing his nearly-completed novel Angelica's Grotto. Of course, that's good news for all of us who are looking forward to reading it.
Posted September 6, 1998 (New Riddley cover added Sep. 12):
The new Expanded Edition |
Correction: The Children's Literature New England Institute, at which Mr. Hoban spoke in August, took place in Cambridge, England, not Cambridge, Massachussetts as I originally reported in the item below dated August 8. I suppose I was misled by the name of the institute. Glad to get that straightened out.
I've just received an advance review copy of the new "Expanded Edition" of Riddley Walker (seen at right) from Indiana University press. (The official release date is September 14, 1998.) They've done a really lovely job with it, and I think all of you Riddleyites out there are going to be very pleased to see the book available again in such a handsome edition. That's Punch on the front cover, of course; on the back cover there's a photo of Mr. Hoban with his back turned, and the same Punch peeking over Mr. Hoban's shoulder. Priceless.
The book features a new Afterword, in which Mr. Hoban elaborates on his first sighting of the 15th-century wall painting The Legend of St. Eustace, which inspired the book; how Punch came into the story; how the book's language evolved and where the place-names come from. My favorite quote: "I was a good speller before I wrote that book; I no longer am but can live with that." There is also a selection from Mr. Hoban's early working notes: we get to hear a bit of what Riddley sounded like when he still spoke conventional English. Finally, there's a brief glossary of some Riddleyspeak terms, like Plomercy, Sarvering Gallack Seas, and sharna pax. It's far from comprehensive, but what's there is fascinating: enough to confirm, as if we doubted it, that Mr. Hoban had more levels of meaning in mind for these terms than just the obvious ones. Also included are Mr. Hoban's early drawings of Punch and a black-and-white reproduction of The Legend of St. Eustace.
Vital Statistics: 256 Pages. Available in both hardcover (US$25; ISBN 0-253-33448-9) and trade paperback (US$12.95; ISBN 0-253-21234-0).
The Expanded Edition of Riddley Walker should be hitting book stores soon. It's already available for order at Amazon. It can also be ordered by calling Indiana University Press toll free (within the US) at 1-800-842-6796. But by all means, please go to your local bookshop and ask them if they'll be carrying the new Expanded Edition of Riddley Walker—it'll help raise awareness and may encourage them to stock it.
Alida Allison, a professor of literature at San Diego University, wrote me to say that she's currently editing a book of essays on Mr. Hoban's books for children, to be called Russell Hoban/Forty Years: Essays on His Writings for Children. She says the book will be comprised of "academic stuff but with scholars from around the world." The publisher will be Garland Press in NYC, a small academic press, and the book will be part of their series "Children's Literature and the Culture." Alida says the manuscript is due in early 1999 and the book should be out by the end of that year.
Grotto Watch: Progress continues on Mr. Hoban's next novel, Angelica's Grotto, about a 72-year man who gets involved with a young woman who runs a naughty web site. In August, Mr. Hoban went on vacation to Germany, staying at his wife Gundula's house in her hometown. He says he "came back with a beautiful Meissen figure that now has a part in Grotto." Not ashamed to admit my ignorance, I've just looked up "Meissen" in my dictionary (which spookily fell open to the page with "Punch" at the top, but I digress) and read that Meissen is "a city in SE East Germany, on the Elbe River: famous for fine porcelain." Mr. Hoban went on to say that he's working on the last part of Grotto now, but he "still has things to fill in," such as the results of the Rorshach and Bender tests he took as research, which he won't have until September 14.
Finally, several Head of Orpheus readers have written me to report that according to items in The New York Times and Entertainment Weekly, Lillian Hoban (Mr. Hoban's first wife, who illustrated the Frances books) passed away on July 17, 1998 in New York City, at the age of 73, of heart failure. She had written or illustrated more than 100 books for children.
Posted August 8, 1998:
A few new tidbits:
- Word is that the Indiana University Press expanded edition of Riddley Walker will be out this month (August) [Correction: that should be September!] There is already ordering information available at Amazon. Even more excitingly, Mr. Hoban says that "There is some talk of a possible Hoban omnibus, maybe more than one, of novels, short stories, essays. Very much in the early stages."
- Mr. Hoban is continuing to make good headway with his novel-in-progress, Angelica's Grotto. He's more than 200 pages into it and seems optimistic about finishing this year. He says that research for the book has included doing a Bender Gestalt Test and a Rorshach on behalf of his "aged non-hero."
- On August 20 Mr. Hoban will be in Cambridge, England addressing the 12th Annual Children's Literature New England Institute. But don't try planning a road trip now: the appearance is already more than sold out with an audience of more than 200.
- Amazon also has information on a new edition of Emmet Otter's Jug-Band Christmas. Thanks to Chris Bell for the tip on that one.
Posted July 11, 1998:
I've just received word from Marilyn Breiter, publicity manager at Indiana University Press, that the forthcoming expanded edition of Riddley Walker is scheduled for a September release. The cover features an image of Punch. Watch The Head of Orpheus for a complete review of the new edition as soon as I get my mitts on it.
Posted July 11, 1998:
Mr. Hoban is mentioned in an eloquent essay by Jonathan Lethem, entitled "Close Encounters: The Squandered Promise of Science Fiction" in the Village Voice Literary Supplement. Here's the paragraph in question:
SF could ask this much: that its more hermetic or hardcore writers be respected for pleasing their small audience of devotees, that its rising stars be given a fair chance on the main stage. What's missing, too, is a Great Books theory of post-1970 SF: one which asserts a shelf of Disch, Ballard, Dick, LeGuin, Samuel Delany, Russell Hoban, Joanna Russ, Geoff Ryman, Christopher Priest, David Foster Wallace--plus books like Pamela Zoline's The Heat Death of the Universe, Walter Tevis's Mockingbird, D. G. Compton's The Continuous Katherine Mortenhoe, Lawrence Shainberg's Memories of Amnesia, Ted Mooney's Easy Travel to Other Planets, Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, and Thomas Palmer's Dream Science--as the standard. Such a theory would also have to push a lot of the genre's self-enshrined but archaic "classics" onto the junk heap.
You can read the complete essay at:
http://www.villagevoice.com/vls/155lethem.shtml. Thanks to Evelyn C. Leeper for the heads-up on this one!
Posted July 1, 1998:
Salon Editor Laura Miller has a lovely piece on Turtle Diary as a lost classic in the Village Voice Summer '98 Literary Supplement.
Posted June 11, 1998:
Big Update! Mere hours after launching this website, I was honored (and a bit dumbstruck, as much as that's possible for someone like me) to receive a communiqué direct from Mr. Hoban himself, saying he was greatly impressed with the site. (He really does get around on the web!) Our man in London has promised to keep me posted on his activities, and shared the following info:
- He's currently 180 pages into Angelica's Grotto, "the one about the old guy and the young woman who runs a pornographic website." (See item below.) He says it's going pretty well and he hopes to finish it this year but you never know.
- He currently has two children's books in production: Trouble on Thunder Mountain, a story-and-picture book for small readers, illustrations by Quentin Blake, and a revised edition of The Sea-Thing Child with illustrations by Patrick Benson.
- Very exciting news for those of us in the U.S.: Mr. Hoban will be traveling here in November to do readings at Harvard and Yale. More details on these appearances will be available as they approach.
- Indiana University Press will be publishing a new, expanded edition of Riddley Walker with an afterword and mini-glossary by Mr. Hoban as well as unpublished notes and early draft material! There should be a lot of that to draw from--I recall him saying in an interview that he had written 500 pages of a first draft before scrapping it and starting over.
- Sadly (I wanted to say "appallingly" but I'm trying to maintain a semblance of journalistic dignity here), he notes that both Fremder and Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer have both been declined by every U.S. publisher they were sent to, nine or ten in all.
Posted June 8, 1998:
The main news, of course, is Mr. Hoban's latest offering, Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer, seen at right. The 182-page novel was published in the U.K. in March, 1998 by Jonathan Cape. Sadly, it has not been published in the U.S. (but you can order a copy from the Bookpages site).
You can read more about it on the Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer page. It's the tale of twenty-eight-year-old Jonathan Fitch, who's been dumped for infidelity by his girlfriend and thinks he's ready to die. As he sits despondently in the Underground, he's approached by Mr. Rinyo-Clacton, an immaculate, aristocratic opera buff who turns out to be a kind of aficionado of death (he tells Jonathan that his first initial, T., stands for "Thanatophile"). Mr. R-C calls Fitch's bluff by offering him a million pounds for the pleasure of "harvesting" his death in a year's time. Fitch is soon in an agony of fear, remorse and guilt as Mr. R-C's web ensnares not only himself, but a kind, sixty-something psychic named Katerina, as well as Fitch's estranged girlfriend Serafina. Although any synopsis of the plot (not to mention the book's cover) immediately calls to mind Faust, Mr. Hoban has said that he doesn't see the book as a Faustian story, and of course he's right. It's not a story about greed or temptation; it's about death, power and the complexity of human relationships.
Posted June 8, 1998:
Meanwhile, Mr. Hoban is already at work on his next book, Angelica's Grotto. He said in a recent interview that he spends a lot of time on the web: "I use it for research and amusement." He goes on to say: "The novel I'm working on now is about a 72 year-old man who gets involved with a woman who runs a pornographic Web site on the Internet." He adds that the research for the novel "is a dirty job, but I've done it." Hmmm. Sounds like it isn't just Medusa turning up on his computer lately.
Posted June 8, 1998:
You can read an interview with Mr. Hoban on the Pure Fiction site, in which he discusses Mr Rinyo-Clacton as well as the Internet, buskers in the Underground, the U.S. and the U.K., and of course, writing.
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