But like Colson Whitehead and Mohsin Hamid, whose novels – The Underground Railroad and Exit West – also move beyond the literal, Hubbard realised the story she wanted to tell needed more than straightforward realism. So Johnny and Eloise set off on a road trip to dig up loot he’s stashed in some of Florida’s less glamorous locations, pursued by a couple of heavies the crooked businessman has put on his tail. The novel is set in motion when a dodgy property dealer realises Johnny hasn’t been entirely accurate with the claims he’s been making for expenses, and gives him a week to scrape together $100,000. There’s plenty of hard reality to be found in The Talented Ribkins alongside these unconventional superpowers.

When it emerges that Johnny and his family used to fight injustice alongside a man who ran so fast they call him Flash, and a woman with a right fist like a hammer, it becomes clear that with Eloise’s own great power must also come great responsibility. Aunt Simone can alter her appearance any way she wants, while Uncle Bertrand can spit fire. The father who died before she was born had an uncanny ability to climb walls, while Johnny himself has a mysterious facility for making maps of places he’s never seen. “It does sound like a superhero group,” Hubbard says, “though that was not at all what he was talking about.”ĭu Bois’s suggestion resounds through Hubbard’s debut novel, The Talented Ribkins, where 72-year-old Johnny discovers his niece Eloise is the latest in the family to possess a peculiar gift.

For the New Orleans-based writer and academic Ladee Hubbard, it’s an idea that chimes strangely with our era of blockbuster superheroes and Black Lives Matter, of Avengers Assemble and Donald Trump.

The talented ribkins review