Tired of... not jam.

There are things I dearly love by Russell Hoban. “‘Eat up the string bean, Gloria.’ / ‘Oh!’ said Gloria, and ate it up." That's my favorite Frances book. “What I am / Is tired of jam.”

One of Hoban's posthumous books is called Soonchild. This post is about its Author's Note and its first paragraph.

Soonchild Author's Note in entirety: "The North in my mind is partly the one from my childhood, when I used to send away for Canadian Railway maps and delight in the blue expanse of Hudson Bay. This North has since joined up with the one in the BBC's Kingdom of the Ice Bear, where I met the barnacle-geese children. My dog-handling comes from Google. The skidoos were gliding around in my unreliable memory and the word was confirmed by Bruce Bergen of Thomas Motors Ltd. in Nipawin, Saskatchewan. The stiff nose hairs and brittle eyeballs date from my childhood sledding in Pennsylvania."

Worth researching and providing (albeit tiny bits of) reference for: geography, barnacle-geese, dog handling, skidoos, and the way a face can feel in cold weather. Not worth researching or providing any reference for: the Inuit people who are this book's characters. The people can come from "the North in [his] mind."

Soonchild opening paragraph in entirety: "Maybe you think there isn't any north where you are. Maybe it's warm and cozy and outside the window the street is full of cars or maybe there's just emptiness and a train whistle. There aren't any Inuit or dogsleds, nothing like that. But in your mind there is a North."

You are not Inuit. You don't live anywhere near or know any people who are Inuit. They are distant and unknown. They're not imaginary but we can make up any story and culture we want for them.