Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer

Description

A warm and witty novel in which a Faustian pact leads to an unconventional love triangle Serial philanderer Jonathan Fitch is distraught when his girlfriend Serafina leaves him. In a desperate state at Piccadilly Circus underground station, he meets wealthy, mysterious Mr Rinyo-Clacton, and ends up agreeing to a Faustian pact- Mr Rinyo-Clacton will give Jonathan one million pounds, if he agrees to die in a year's time. Can Jonathan go on living like this? Can he go on living at all? A wry, affectionate look at what goes on between consenting, relenting and dissenting adults.

On his death in 2011, The Times described Russell Hoban as 'perhaps the most consistently strange writer of the late 20th century'. He thought and wrote in an extraordinary range of genres, becoming first a bestselling writer of children's books, particularly the immortal Frances stories and his first novel, The Mouse and His Child (1968). After its publication he continued to write for children (most notably perhaps the Captain Najork books with Quentin Blake and The Marzipan Pig), but focussed most of his energies on a sequence of wonderful novels, which began with The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973) and ended with Angelica Lost and Found (2010). He also wrote the libretto for Harrison Birtwistle's opera The Second Mrs Kong (1994). His novels were wildly various, but share his obsession with objects, animals, specific works of art and pieces of music, his love of words and sense of humour. Penguin Modern Classics publishes his first eight novels- The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz, Kleinzeit, Turtle Diary, Riddley Walker, Pilgermann, The Medusa Frequency, Fremder and Mr Rinyo-Clacton's Offer.

Nothing is accidental or optional in this jewelled clockwork egg of a book... Hoban is a hugely skilled, moving and endlessly entertaining writer. * Times Literary Supplement * A poignant and engaging fable of ownership and surrender. -- Philip Hensher * Mail on Sunday * He mixes wild invention with subtle observation... the resulting tale reads like a downbeat, offbeat Faust for the tawdry, lottery-playing 1990s. * The Times * Worth rejoicing in ... a banquet of whimsical delights. Each Russell Hoban book is surprising ... but you also know what you're getting, which is curiosity, wonder and a world-encompassing empathy. -- John Self * The Guardian *