The big hand of the clock is at 12. The little hand is at 7

[sovay]

Why did I not know until after he died that Russell Hoban of Riddley Walker (1980) also wrote Bedtime for Frances (1960) and Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas (1971)? I read the latter as a very small child and the former in college; I never put the names together. I was prepared to miss a luminary of science fiction and now I'm grieving for a small pencil-drawn badger.

Comments

[barry-king.livejournal.com]

Oh, my; I just saw the obituary, and just yesterday I was just asking my writing group if any of them had read Riddley Walker.

I had the good luck to have had Hoban around nearly a lifetime: I was introduced to both the Hoban's work through Bread and Jam for Frances. The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz was a book that helped me make sense of the dysfunctionality inherent in all families in my teen years, and Riddley Walker is the book that first made me realize that SFF can contain great art, and that it's not just about imagining the future, but re-constructing the past-possible.

I hope some of his backlist is brought back out for reprints. Very few writers, even among the most skilled, have such facility with making both objective and subjective reality integral part of their plotlines.