I was very sad to hear of the death of my friend Roger Hubank. Roger grew up in Derby, as a boy was a particularly talented footballer. However, by the time he was studying at Cambridge in the late 1950s, Roger had become a keen and able climber. He climbed widely both in Britain and the Alps.
For many years Roger was a lecturer at Loughborough University. In 1978 his first novel ‘North Wall’ was published by Hutchinson and was described by Ken Wilson as ‘a work of genius’. It is an austere and harsh piece of work, never flinching from the hard reality of its subject.
Roger’s second novel ‘Hazard’s Way’, published in 2001 was set in Wasdale in the early part of the last century and deals with tragedy on the crags, and a young man’s struggle to find his place in life. To quote Jim Perrin: “Roger Hubank’s new book is simply a masterpiece – the finest piece of fictional writing about the subject of mountaineering ever to have been published in this country”.
‘Hazard’s way’ was an outstanding winner of the The Boardman Tasker Award for Mountaineering Literature in 2001, and also won the Grand Prix at the Banff Mountain Literature Festival (Canada). The book also received a Royal Society of Literature Special Commendation.
Roger added further novels each dealing with the mountains and wild places. ‘North’ was published in 2002, followed by ‘Taking Leave’ in 2004, and ‘Evening Light’ in 2009. His last novel ‘The Way of the Cuillin’ was published in 2021 and is set in 1938 with the shadow of war hanging over the country. Through the conversations of the characters, we gain insight into the political instability and psychological damage incurred from earlier conflicts, accentuated by anxiety and conjecture over the current crisis. The book is meticulous in its attention to historical settings: the bustle of Fitzrovia as London prepares for war and the Isle of Skye in the late 1930s. To my mind, this complex novel is perhaps Roger’s finest piece of work.
Mountaineering fiction is a difficult area to execute well, and there have been some poor examples in the past. Roger Hubank was a craftsman and tackles the challenge of this kind of work with great skill and sensitivity. All of his books are highly recommended.
Steve Dean
