Crossword Help Forum
Forum Rules

xwordfan,
USA by another name and
article followed by 13 letters ending in a sibling.

I must say that I read 6D as US (m)others = (m)oms minus the first letter (head for exit)

At the very last stage - finding 2 further works and a protagonist. Can't find them, despite scouring his bibliography and the grid.

The hint words point to many of his works, but I've checked others too, so either my grid interior is horribly messed up, or there's something strange I've missed.

Could anyone give me a nudge please? Are they really in contiguous cells?

jazzlover - They are both very well known but read the preamble again to see why you might not recognise them immediately.
They are contiguous and combine to form a single character.

they are in their original language

Thanks xwordfan and dxx. Will have another look now. The language probably threw me. Duh!

Took but a minute, thanks so much.

Memo to self: rather than puzzling for arduous hours, when getting very frustrated, ask for tips from wiser heads.

I started this yesterday afternoon because of a comment on this week's Listener thread on Answerbank and have been battling with it ever since. I'm pleased that I got there in the end under my own steam but I enjoyed the endgame rather more than the journey.

The grid is awful. There are far too many short entries (65% of the grid consists of answers of five letters or fewer, including ten 3-letter words). Some entries have too may unchecked letters (eg 7, 13, 23).

Only two Listeners this year have been tougher this year for me, but at least the clues in the Listener puzzles are rigorous. I'd say at least half of these clues would be heavily edited had the puzzle been submitted to Listener editors. For example, the wordplay for 32a requires 'leaves' or 'has left' to describe the disappearance of W. Considering the toughness of the clue gimmick, some of the definitions are unreasonably indirect or vague, or just oddly worded. The puzzle needed far more scrupulous editing in my view.