Unreserved admiration

I first met Russell Hoban in 1970, shortly after he had come to live in London. He was beginning to write adult novels and in 1972 he sent me The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz. At that time Jonathan Cape was the pre-eminent publisher of innovative literary fiction and was under the guidance of Tom Maschler. I went straight there and Tom bought the book, seeing at once its special qualities. In that first novel you can find many of the continuing themes of Russell Hoban’s adult oeuvre, the interest in maps, the strong presence of London and its geography and the relationship between father and son. Since then Russell Hoban has continued to write adult novels full of original ideas. For me, the greatest was, of course, Riddley Walker, the novel for which the reader needs to learn the protagonist’s language, and it richly repays the effort. Russell Hoban’s novels have always had great critical success and happily they continue to appear regularly, with no diminution in quality or originality. Come Dance with Me appears this spring [2005] and Linger Awhile is due early in 2006. But it is as a writer for children that he began, with classics like the Frances books and The Twenty Elephant Restaurant and, a favourite of mine, The Trokeville Way. He remains one of the few writers who manages to combine the two careers. Russell Hoban has won many awards for his fiction. In 1974 he won the Whitbread Prize for How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen. The mere thought of the iron-hatted Aunt Fidget Wonkham-Strong’s mutton-and-potato sog sends shivers down my spine. It has been the greatest pleasure acting as Russell Hoban’s literary agent for 35 years. I admire him and his work unreservedly. In the front of my copy of Riddley Walker, he wrote:

BRUCE HUNTER HES AN AGENT WHICH THATS AN INTERESTING WORDING BEING HE IS A GENT AND A HUNTER BOATH HE FORAGES CLYNTS. YOU MAKE UP A STORY AND HEWL FYND YOU SOME 1 TO PERPL SHIT. THATS WHAT THEY CALL IT THE CLYNT SWALLERS THE STORY THEN HE PERPL SHITS FAR AND WIDE THE FARTHER AND WIDER THE BETTER.

Bruce Hunter has retired from being Russell Hoban's literary agent (at David Higham Associates) since this article was written. He is now Russell's literary executor and comments: "I continue, though retired from DHA, to be involved with the management of his work and that gives me great pleasure."