Russell Hoban - Faithful to the Strange

Spanning more than half a century, Russell Hoban's celebrated literary career won him critical accolades and legions of admirers across multiple genres. Many know him from the groundbreaking masterpiece Riddley Walker, with its twelve-year-old protagonist contemplating "what the idear of us myt be" from amidst the ruins of civilization. Others know Hoban from the genre-defying The Mouse and His Child or from idiosyncratic novels of floundering Londoners. Still others fondly recall Frances the Badger's refusal to go to bed, or share Emmet Otter with their children at Christmas.
This book, the first consideration of Russell Hoban's literary career as a whole, explores what binds these seemingly disparate works together. Discovering unexpected patterns between books written from what one character describes as a perpetual "state of surprise," this critical study also draws on Hoban's biography, from his formation as an artist under the influence of jazz in New York to the upheaval of his self-reinvention as a writer, as it offers its own reflection on what the idea of Russell Hoban might be.

List of contents

Table of Contents

Preface and Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Beginning of a Pomegranate

One. "Fidelity is what's wanted"

Two. "Alive in some kind of way"

Three. "Don't tell me you've been on the beach all this time"

Four. "Books in nameless categories"

Five. Keaton, Schumann, and Coleman Won't Explain the Omelette

Six. Dialectics of Encounter and Vulnerability

Seven. "Art isn't meant to solve problems, is it"

Eight. "There aint nothing what aint a tel"

Nine. "Any special field of attention"

Ten. Unfashionable Mysteries, Spiritual Mirages, and Metaphysical Illusions

Eleven. "Jazz acrobats"

Chapter Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the author

Graeme Wend-Walker is a professor of English literature at Texas State University in San Marcos.

Product details

• Authors: Graeme Wend-Walker
• Publisher: Ingram Publishers Services
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 26.09.2025
• EAN: 9781476682822
• ISBN: 978-1-4766-8282-2
• No. of pages: 248
• Illustrations: Raster,schwarz-weiss
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; Science Fiction, Fantasy, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Science Fiction & Fantasy, LITERARY CRITICISM / Children's & Young Adult Literature, United States of America, USA, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Children's & teenage literature studies, Children’s and teenage literature studies: general, Literary; jazz