Jim's Lion

Alexis Deacon, brilliant illustrator of Russell Hoban’s final masterpiece, Soonchild, now reimagines Russell’s touching story about a boy in hospital, who dreams wild and extraordinary dreams as he faces a life-saving operation. Jim is in hospital. He’s frightened. What if the doctors send him somewhere that he can’t find his way back from? Nurse Bami tells Jim that he must go to his “good place” and there, his “finder” will come looking for him. Everyone has a finder. And so, deep in Jim’s dreams, he finds his: a lion. In Soonchild, Russell Hoban’s final piece of fiction before he died, Alexis Deacon met the spirit and wit of Hoban’s vision head-on – brilliantly capturing the dark magic that lay at the heart of this fable. Since then, it feels almost impossible to imagine a better match for Hoban’s words than Alexis’ art. Illustrated throughout, Alexis reimagines the rousing story of Jim’s Lion into a truly stunning, life-affirming and creatively inspired graphic novel.