No Other Track: Russell Hoban and the Literary Pilgrim

This study will examine the novels of Russell Hoban, an American-born writer living and working in London, and their consistent engagement of the idea of pilgrimage: the spiritual and geographical travel towards a particular goal as found in early Christian writing, as well as extant writings of other religions and cultures. After briefly tracing the social and literary history of the pilgrimage, I will examine each of Hoban's novels with an eye towards their secular revision of the pilgrimage motif, a revision which nonetheless retains a measure of spirituality.