Author(s): Russell Hoban

Fiction

A novel about bloodthirsty 1950s movie cowgirls with hallucinogenic toadsucking properties: this is seductive, fine fiction at the cutting edge of mayhem. When Irving Goodman falls in love with Justine Trimble he is close to the end of his life and she's been dead for forty-seven years. Irving doesn't know how he's going to attain his heart's desire but he knows a man who does. Justine was a black-and-white western star of the 1950s, an expert horsewoman much admired for her seat, and when Istvan Fallok, a wizard of high technology, sees her in Irving's video of Last Stage to El Paso he decides to climb aboard. He hi-techs Justine out of the videotape and into present-day Soho - in black-and-white. It's amazing what you can do with magnetised particles in a suspension of disbelief. Readers of Bram Stoker know that blood is the (full-colour) life. Istvan is Justine's first donor but in order not to be walking around in black-and-white she has to be topped up now and then by Irving and his friends and the odd passerby. Not surprisingly, the curiosity of the police is soon aroused. Things become a little complicated when Grace Kowalski brings a Justine Two into the picture. Where will this all end? Read Linger Awhile and find out...