After beginning her fifth novel, which was to be a fictionalized account of her "radical childhood," Hobson became "blocked." Putting the manuscript aside, she returned to her career in promotion. In 1953, she began writing a daily newspaper column for the International News Service, entitled "Assignment America." During this decade she also began to edit the double-crostic word puzzles for the "Saturday Review", and would continue to do so for nearly thirty years. In 1959, she returned to her abandoned novel, which was finally published by Random House in 1964 as "First Papers". Considered by many to be her finest novel, "First Papers" was widely praised.