Maurice Sendak |
My hero:
Maurice Sendak by Neil Gaiman
'Sendak did not make books for children. He just made books. His linework was elegant, sometimes even cute, but always honest'
I was a journalist when I started out in the writing game, and I learned not to meet my heroes if I wanted them to remain heroes, and so I never even made an effort to meet Maurice Sendak.
Meeting writers and artists in the flesh is anyway overrated. I met Sendak for the first time when I was 10 or 11. My little sister did not read, and I inveigled my parents into giving me extra pocket money to buy her books, on condition that I read to her. I read her books by Edward Gorey and Heath Robinson, and a book with an interesting cover called In the Night Kitchen.
It was a dream, told in comics panels, although the panels were often the size of whole pages. (It was years before I discovered Winsor McCay's Little Nemo in Slumberland cartoons, Sendak's inspiration.) I loved the transgressive nakedness of Mickey, our hero, loved the strange pastry chefs who all looked like Oliver Hardy, loved the weird internal rhymes and the read-it-again quality of the story. I now love knowing that it still features on the American Library Association's "most challenged" list. It scared adults.
I bought Sendak for my children, and read them all of it, found them a Wild Thing toy when such things were rare, and then saw Outside Over There, a haunting tale of a girl whose baby brother is stolen by goblins, become a favourite of my daughter Holly.
Sendak, who died this week, did not make books for children. He just made books. His linework was elegant, sometimes even cute, but always honest. He was wise, and he never patronised any readers, adult or child. I devoured interviews with Sendak: he was a grumpy, Jewish, brilliant, wise contrarian and he didn't mellow as he aged. But then, he had never created mellow books. His coming out in 2008, age 80, was a final act of honesty.
Something Sendak once said is the epigraph of my next book. "I remember my own childhood vividly." he explained. "I knew terrible things. But I knew I mustn't let adults know I knew. It would scare them."
2009
001 My hero / Oscar Wilde by Michael Holroyd
002 My hero / Harley Granville-Barker by Richard Eyre
003 My hero / Edward Goldsmith by Zac Goldsmith
004 My hero / Fridtjof Nansen by Sara Wheeler
005 My hero / Mother Mercedes Lawler IBVM by Antonia Fraser
007 My hero / Ernest Shepard by Richard Holmes
008 My hero / JG Ballard by Will Self
009 My hero / Alan Ross by William Boyd
010 My hero / Ben the labrador by John Banville
011 My hero / Vicent van Gogh by Margaret Drabble
012 My hero / Franz Marek by Eric Hobsbawm
2010
018 My hero / Francisco Goya by Diana Athill
019 My hero / Max Stafford-Clark by Sebastian Barry
020 My hero / Arthur Holmes by Richard Fortey
022 My hero / John Keats by Helen Dunmore
023 My hero / Edith Wharton by Lionel Shriver
024 My hero / Elizabeth Barrett Browing by Sara Paretsky
025 My hero / Nelson Mandela by Gordon Brown
026 My hero / Billy Wilder by David Nicholls
027 My hero / Samuel Beckett by Nick Clegg
028 My hero / Margaret Atwood by Caroline Lucas
029 My hero / Colette by Helen Simpson
030 My hero / Cyd Charisse by Tony Parsons
031 My hero / Nicolai Medtner by Philip Pullman
032 My hero / Jean Genet by Ahdaf Soueif
033 My hero / Jeri Johnson by Kate Moss
034 My hero / John Maynard Keynes by Joan Bakewell
035 My hero / Patti Smith by Joseph O'Connor
037 My hero / Beryl Bainbridge by Michael Holroyd
038 My hero / Charles Schulz by Jenny Colgan
039 My hero / Oliver Knussen by Adam Foulds
040 My hero / Annie Proulx by Alan Warner
041 My hero / David Lynch by Paul Murray
042 My hero / Edwin Morgan by Robert Crawford
043 My hero / Anne Lister by Emma Donoghue
044 My hero / Jane Helen Harrinson by Mary Beard
045 My hero / Edmund Burke by David Marquand
046 My hero / Shelagh Deleaney by Jeanette Winterson
047 My hero / Christopher Marlowe by Val McDermid
048 My hero / Gwen John by Anne Enright
049 My hero / Michael Mayne by Susan Hill
050 My hero / Stanley Spencer by Howard Jacobson
051 My hero / William Beveridge by Will Hutton
052 My hero / Jean McConville by Amanda Foreman
053 My hero / Alexander Pushkin by Elaine Feinstein
054 My hero / Michael de Montaigne by Liyun Li
055 My hero / Michael Donaghy by Maggie O'Farrell
056 My hero / Richmal Crompton by Louise Crompton
057 My hero / Edward Thomas by David Constantine
058 My hero / Cy Twombly by Edmund de Waal
059 My hero / Sefton by Jilly Cooper
2011
079 My hero / Gene Wolfe by Neil Gaiman
087 My hero / Alberto Moravia by John Burnside
096 My hero / Isaac Babel by AD Miller
097 My hero / Lucian Freud by Esi Edugyan
102 My hero / David Hockney by Susan Hill
111 My hero / Arnold Lobell by Julia Donaldson (23 December)
2012 (PAGE 9)
115 My hero / Nadime Gordimer by Tessa Hadley (27 January)
131 My hero / Maurice Sendak by Neil Gaiman (11 May)
156 My hero / Barack Obama by Lorrie Moore (8 November)
160 My hero / Charles Baudelaire by Roberto Calasso (7 December)
174 My hero / Alice Munro by Nell Freudenberger (29 March)
176 My hero / Mae West by Kathy Lette (12 April)
184 My hero / Louise Bourgeois by Tracey Emin (28 June)
187 My hero / Roddy Doyle by Kerry Hudson (19 July)
191 My hero: Elmore Leonard by Philip Hensher (23 August)
199 My hero / Albert Camus by Geoff Dyer (1 November)
2014
206 My hero / Sir John Tenniel by Chris Riddell (11 Jan)
222 My hero / Emily Brontë by Lucasta Miller (16 May)
241 My hero / Mary Shelley by Neil Gaiman (18 October)
2015
261 My hero / Football by David Conn (30 May)
280 My hero / George Weindelfel by Antonia Fraser
281 My hero / Dmitri Shostakovich by Julian Barnes
282 My hero / Charlotte Brontë by Tracy Chevalier
283 My hero / Margaret Foster by Valerie Grove
284 My hero / David Cesarini by David Herman
285 My hero / Umberto Eco by Jonathan Coe
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