The adult novels, however, have something childlike about them, and crisis begets transformation. It’s true that Lillian’s illustrations give the Frances books a melancholy zaniness, but unlike the grown-up novels that followed between 19, eight of which are now appearing as Penguin Modern Classics, they’re not concerned with blockage, depression and crisis. Was Hoban trying to outrun the reputation of these books when, in 1969, he moved to London? There he divorced his wife and co-author/illustrator, Lillian, and began to write fiction stuffed with so much guignol sex, mutilation, death and loneliness that no one could mistake him for an author of bedtime read-alouds. Until, that is, she learns to be good and the fuzzy family in bathrobes and slippers gets cosy again. There’s Bread and Jam for Frances, in which she refuses to eat anything but bread and jam, and Bedtime for Frances, in which she rebels against sleep routines. They have remained continuously in print for more than half a century. Miserably, though, in much of the English-reading world – including the US, where he was born – he remains best known for his children’s books about Frances the Badger. I n a more just universe, Russell Hoban would be widely celebrated as the author of one of the most ambitious novels of the later 20th century: Riddley Walker (1980).
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