Russell Hoban - Pilgermann

Riddley Walker left me in a place where there was further action pending and this further action was waiting for the element that would precipitate it into the time and place of its own story. It was my daughter Esmé and her husband Moti who on May 15th, 1980 took me to the ruined stronghold of Montfort in Galilee, built in the twelfth century by the knights of the Teutonic Order of Saint Mary and enlarged by them in the thirteenth century. We slept in the open in the camping site across the gorge from the ruin, and in the morning we went down the steep path to the stream at the bottom of the gorge and then climbed the winding road up to Montfort.

The look of the stars burning and flickering over Montfort, those three stars between the Virgin and the Lion with their upward swing like the curve of a scythe, the stare into the darkness, the hooded eagleness of the stronghold high over the gorge, the paling into dawn of its gathered flaunt and power precipitated Pilgermann into his time and place and me into a place I hadn’t even known was there.

For help in my researches I am indebted to Michael Freed, to Alina Edmond, to Michael Negin, Deputy Clerk to the Beth Din, to Ezra Kahn of the Jews’ College Library, to Robert Irwin, to James Mellaart, to S. D. Goitein, who very graciously sent me unpublished material for reference, and to the School of Oriental and African Studies Library of the University of London and its unfailingly co-operative staff.

To Mary Banks, my copy editor, I owe a special thanks; this text required many final decisions well beyond the range of copy-editing, and her fine-tuned ear, unerring eye, and reliably sound judgment made light work of it.

R.H.

Russell Hoban (1925–2011) was the author of many extraordinary novels including Turtle Diary, Angelica Lost and Found and his masterpiece, Riddley Walker. He also wrote some classic books for children including The Mouse and his Child and the Frances books. Born in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, USA, he lived in London from 1969 until his death.