Today marked the announcement of the longlist for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Included are three Irish authors.
Book News
No recommended reading this week, as you’ll no doubt be trying to take in all thirteen nominees for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. The shortlist will be announced on September 8th, so you have a month and a half to make up your mind on which of the books should make it - it’ll also give you plenty of time to read them all! The eventual winner will then be announced on October 6th.
Three Irish authors are on the list: Colm Toibin, Ed O’Loughlin, and William Trevor. There are three first time novelists on the list and also two former winners.
AS Byatt - The Children’s Book
Byatt is a previous winner, having won in 1990 for Possession. An excellent novel about children who have been damaged by their pushy parents. Exceptionally well written in concise simple English.Will probably make the shortlist, but will miss out on the big prize.
JM Coetzee - Summertime
Coetzee is a two-time winner of the Booker, in 1983 for Life & Times of Michael K, and more recently in 1999 for Disgrace. This is the third in his trilogy of his upbringing. I’d recommend you read Boyhood and Youth first. Probably a longshot for the Booker Prize, as he was the first two-time winner, and it’s doubtful he’ll be a three-timer.
Adam Foulds - The Quickening Maze
A beautifully poetic novel which is set in the time of John Clare and Alfred Tennyson, where Clare is a patient at High Beach Insane Asylum. Full of fantastical delusions and depression, it is the novel Foulds’ ability has been leading up to. My tip for the prize.
Sarah Hall - How to Paint a Dead Man
Set over a period of 50 years in Italy and England, covering four individual stories - one per chapter - which interwine in the most wonderful of ways. However, this can be somewhat convoluted and suffers from the old problem of style over substance. Shouldn’t make the shortlist.
Samantha Harvey - The Wilderness
This is Harvey’s first novel, about a man in his 60s suffering from Alzheimers. It provides an excellent description of how the horrible disease takes hold of his mind as he tries to keep hold of his identity. A wonderful debut, but another longshot.
James Lever - Me Cheeta
I really can’t believe this made it on the longlist. I had to check multiple sources to be sure it wasn’t a joke. This debut is a faux-autobiography, kind of like the novel version of Spinal Tap. Probably a way to get publicity for the prize more than anything else. Don’t bet on it. At all.
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall
A massive tome rather than a novel, you’ll be lost in this for many a day, unfortunately it’s a difficult read, and many may find it hard to follow in places as there are tonnes of characters, of which some are real and some are imaginary. Could please some of the stuffier judges. So will probably make the shortlist.
Simon Mawer - The Glass Room
A wonderful novel with an even better cover. Set in 1930s Czechoslovakia, and following the lives of a Jewish family as they are exiled to Switzerland and then on to America. However, the glass room of the novel is the main protagonist, and proves to be utterly captivating. Another of my favourites on the longlist.
Ed O’Loughlin - Not Untrue & Not Unkind
This is Irishman Ed O’Loughlin’s first novel. It focuses heavily on his past as a journalist in Africa, and is a little known work on both sides of the Irish Sea. Provides an excellent insight into the world of the African war correspondant. It is sure to bring him more attention, and set him up perfectly for his now-inevitable second novel.
James Scudamore - Heliopolis
Set in the Slums of Sao Paolo, this provides a more realistic depiction of slum-life than Danny Boyle’s 2009 film Slumdog Millionaire. The contrast with rich city life is staggering, and isn’t a cliched telling of a slum child made good. Could well make the shortlist.
Colm Toibin - Brooklyn
If there’s one book on the longlist that you’re likely to have read, this is the one. Set between Wexford and New York, with a fantastic finale. Irish hopes are really pinned on this one.
William Trevor - Love and Summer
This is Cork-born Trevor’s latest attempt at the Booker Prize, having been nominated four times previously. It’s set in 1950s rural Ireland, where nothing much happens until a mysterious figure arrives at a funeral. At first it seems like a typical Irish novel, but turns out to be so much more.
Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger
Dealing with a fall from grace akin to Castle Rackrent, The Little Stranger is a wonderful account of class in 1950s middle England. It is a very slow read at times, and takes some work to get in to. Doesn’t deserve to be on the shortlist.
That’s what I think of the novels on the longlist. Have you read them? Have a different opinion? Bring it on, I love a good book debate!
Excellent post there, but I really find these nominated books to all be very similar in tone. With the exception of William Trevor’s one, none of them really stick out.
There’s never enough Zombies in Booker Prize nominated novels
I’ve just read Brooklyn. I really liked it! His stories are realistic and typically irish!
Three Irish and Me Cheeta - certainly an interesting longlist. Me Cheeta is there to stir things up a bit and get some press inches (like Child 44 did last year). Good to see it there though.
Ed O’Loughlin is well worth a read and I’d be hopeful it’d make the short list as a dark horse (but I’m usually wrong anyway).
@Venn, yeah Me Cheeta is the only one that stands out among the crowd as being different. But I find most years the Booker tends to go for a similar sort of fiction anyhow. I think the judges are set in their ways, and kind of feel obliged to pick a certain type of novel.
@Bob, I’m always wrong about these things. Everything that I said will make the shortlist, won’t! Wait and see.
I’ll be honest, the thoughts of having to sieve through a collection of pompous, over reaching, overly dramatic books about asylums, depression, alzheimers, war, the slums and the Irish making it in America, fills me with dread.
I’ll wait for the shortlist; then I’ll wait for the winner; then I’ll wait for the movie; then I’ll wait for it to come to TV3 at 11pm some night when I’m slightly drunk and too tired to change the channel.
Couldn’t disagree with you more on The Little Stranger. It’s not a “slow read” at all, I found it utterly compelling from start to finish and read it in two days (I was on holiday at the time). Beautifully written, evocative, suspenseful and gripping. By the way, don’t know why Darren Byrne is bothering to comment, when he obviously has no interest in literary fiction.
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