“More and more I find that life is a series of disappearances followed usually but not always by reappearances; you disappear from your morning self and reappear as your afternoon self; you disappear from feeling good and reappear feeling bad. And people, even face to face and clasped in each other's arms, disappear from each other.”

from Fremder

Jonathan Cape 1996, p.32

Extracted from Mr Hoban’s seventh novel and dropped on 4 February 2008 in celebration of his eighty-third birthday