Discussion Topic: Do Literary Prizes Influence Your Reading Choices?

It's literary awards season! Well, kind of. Of course, the Pulitzer Prizes are awarded in the spring, and the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction (formerly the Orange Prize) in early summer. But this week has felt like a Literary Prize Extravaganza, with the announcement of the shortlists for the National Book Award, and of course, the awarding of the Man Booker Prize. Here's the book that gets to have a sticker announcing it as the 2014 Man Booker Prize winner . . . .

Australian writer Richard Flanagan took home the prestigious prize for his novel, The Narrow Road to the Deep North. This got me thinking, because none of the readers I know, either in real life or in the blogosphere, have mentioned wanting to read this book. I haven't felt particularly compelled to pick up the novel myself. I have read a few critics' reviews of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, and they have been mixed. Flanagan's story about Australian POWS during World War II who are forced into grueling slave labor by their Japanese captors sounds very bleak and brutal . . . maybe it's a novel that needed to be written, but I can't say that it's one I especially want to read.

Earlier this year, I was very interested in following the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction. The shortlist this year was pretty darn stellar--Hannah Kent's Burial Rites, Donna Tartt's The Goldfinch, Jhumpa Lahiri's The Lowland, Chimimanda Ngozi Adichie's Americanah, Audrey Magee's The Undertaking. I read all of those except The Lowland (although I've previously read and loved Lahiri, and I do hope to read it). But none of these books won the prize; the winner was this book:

Eimear McBride's A Girl is a Half-formed Thing is written in a stream-of-consciousness style. From what I've read, many readers have found the prose confusing and inaccessible, and the content to be an unrelentingly sad tale of betrayal and abuse. Ron Charles of The Washington Post wryly noted that McBride's book is an "extraordinarily demanding novel that will fascinate dozens of American readers." Dozens. Ouch. It may be very worthy, and perhaps it's important for experimental fiction to be recognized at times (in fact, I am sure that IS true), but I haven't noticed a tide of readers taking McBride's novel on since the Baileys prize was announced. I think I will be taking a pass on this one myself.

Now, I know that many factors go into the selection of the winners for a literary prize. Of course, I am not going to like all of the books selected as winners, and neither is any one individual reader. But these last couple of literary prizewinners did make me wonder how many readers out there consider the awarding of a literary prize to be something that influences their choice to read a book or not. And lately, has there been a disconnect between the prizewinning novels and what most readers actually want to read?

For myself, I will say that I DO pay attention to the literary prizes. It always interests me to know which books make the longlists and shortlists, and certainly which ones take home the prize. I've read many prizewinning novels over the past two decades, and I can count some of them as my favorite novels (for example, Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, Margaret Atwood's The Blind Assassin, Zadie Smith's On Beauty, Ann Patchett's Bel Canto). Some other novels I've loved have made it to the shortlists of the big awards.

So I do pay attention . . . I usually at least read a description and a few reviews of every novel that makes it to the shortlist of one of the big literary prizes. This can be a great way to learn about novels that might be highly literary and deserving, but haven't experienced commercial success.

At the same time, clearly, winning a prize is not enough to make me read a novel. If a prize-winning novel strikes me as compelling, I will likely read it. But, as with A Girl is a Half-formed Thing and The Narrow Road to the Deep North, simply winning the prize alone will not help the book find its way onto my bookshelf.

What about you . . . do the big literary prizes influence your reading choices, and if so, how?

Review of Some Luck by Jane Smiley

Some Luck by Jane Smiley
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf
Publication Date: October 7, 2014
Length: 416 pages
Source: Library copy

The Story: Some Luck, the new novel from Jane Smiley, is the first of a planned trilogy called “The Last Hundred Years” about the Langdon family. The five children of Walter and Rosanna Langdon, each very different from one another, grow up on an isolated farm in Denby, Iowa in the 1920s and ‘30s. Their childhoods are spent leading the same kind of rural life that their parents and grandparents did, bound by time-honored agricultural rhythms. The country is on the brink of sweeping social and economic change, however, and the Langdon children will find themselves spreading out from the Midwestern heartland, experiencing things that their parents could never have imagined.

By the end of the book, in 1952, some of the Langdons have found themselves in Washington DC, New York City, and San Francisco, while some remain in Iowa. Their experiences have been as enormously diverse as their personalities. Three of the Langdon children have married and now have children of their own. With the Langdons, Smiley provides an intimate, and often poignant, portrait of an ordinary American family through the decades.

My Thoughts: I’ve read quite a number of Jane Smiley’s novels, most of them back in the 1990s (strange that the 1990s seems so long ago now!). I’ve always appreciated Smiley as a natural storyteller, and for the fluid nature of her prose. A good Smiley novel--like A Thousand Acres, my favorite of her books--immerses you completely in the lives of her characters, and you don’t want to leave that world when the novel ends. But the last Smiley novel I read was disappointing for me (Ten Days in the Hills). When I heard that Smiley had written a new novel, a multi-generational story about an Iowa farm family, I knew that I wanted to experience it.

And fortunately, Some Luck is a marvelous, engrossing read. I found this story of one family’s life through the years to be unexpectedly riveting, and I wanted to savor every last bit of it.

Smiley doesn’t follow the familiar structure used in many novels, of exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, etc. Instead, each chapter of Some Luck covers a year in the life of the Langdon family, starting with 1920 and ending in 1952. Every year Smiley gives you a good sense of the rhythms of the Langdons’ lives with a few vignettes about some of the characters. Sometimes a big change happens in a particular year, and sometimes not; small moments sometimes reveal themselves to be significant only with the passage of time. I thought Smiley’s year-by-year structure was a brilliant device to allow readers to fully immerse themselves into the experiences of her characters.

I imagine that some readers will find this structure hard to take, and will wonder, “but where is the PLOT?” Well, to put it simply, the plot is these characters’ lives. As in most real people’s lives, there isn’t one climactic moment that changes everything or a single dramatic resolution. Rather, Smiley seems to say, for the Langdons, as for all of us, there is life, every year—life, with its day-to-day struggles and joys, with its continual cycle of births, passions, and disappointments--until finally, there is death. What greater plot, really, is there?

I would rate Some Luck a 4 out of 5 stars—not a 5, because I do think the start is a little slow. I recommend Some Luck to readers of literary and historical fiction, especially those who like to sink their teeth into a good multi-generational family saga, and I will look forward to the next book in Smiley’s trilogy about the Langdon family.

Waiting on Wednesday: Us by David Nicholls

"Waiting on Wednesday" is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. Autumn is usually a season with great new releases in fiction, and this year appears to be no exception--there are lots of fall books I'm itching to read!

Here is one book I am looking forward to . . .

Us is the latest novel from David Nicholls, and it will be released in the United States on October 28. It earned a spot on the longlist for the Man Booker Prize. Here is the synopsis from Goodreads:

"I was looking forward to us growing old together. Me and you, growing old and dying together."

"Douglas, who in their right mind would forward to that?"

Douglas Peterson understands his wife's need to "rediscover herself" now that their son is leaving home.

He just thought they'd be doing their rediscovering together.

So when Connie announces that she will be leaving too, he resolves to make their last family holiday into the trip of a lifetime: one that will draw the three of them closer, and win the respect of his son. One that will make Connie fall in love with him all over again.

The hotels are booked, the tickets bought, the itinerary planned and printed.

What could possibly go wrong?

This book really caught my attention, even though I haven't read anything from David Nicholls before. The reviews I've seen have said it is humorous, as well as thought-provoking--always a promising combination for a novel. Maybe I'm interested because I'm at the stage of life that a dissection of a long marriage, and the empty nest syndrome, are topics that have some relevance for me.

Does Us sound like something you would read? What new releases are you eagerly awaiting?

Review of We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler

We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves by Karen Joy Fowler
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Publication Date: May 30, 2013
Length: 310 pages
Source: My own copy

Plot Synopsis from The Man Booker Prize 2014 Website: As a child, Rosemary used to talk all the time. So much so that her parents used to tell her to start in the middle if she wanted to tell a story. Now Rosemary has just started college and she barely talks at all. And she definitely doesn’t talk about her family. So we're not going to tell you too much either: you'll have to find out for yourself what it is that makes her unhappy family unlike any other. Rosemary is now an only child, but she used to have a sister the same age as her, and an older brother. Both are now gone - vanished from her life. But there's something unique about Rosemary's sister, Fern. So now she's telling her story; a looping narrative that begins towards the end, and then goes back to the beginning. Twice.

My Thoughts: Oh, I loved this novel, and I’m having a very difficult time expressing why. We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is a work of literary fiction that is both intelligent and highly readable. Fowler tackles some very big, thought-provoking topics—What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to take responsibility for our loved ones? How can we atone for our inevitable failures? Big topics, indeed, and those are just a few. There is also much to think about in this novel about memory, family, and the ethics of scientific research. And yet, with all of that, Fowler keeps the plot moving quickly, with plenty of action (even some almost mad-cap comedy), and manages to keep the tone lively and even jaunty at times. The result is a witty and engaging novel that entertains as well as makes you think.

This is a book that I couldn’t put down, and it hasn’t left my thoughts since I finished it a few weeks ago. It is a terrific achievement for Fowler, and I’m glad the novel received a spot on the Man Booker Prize shortlist (first time for an American woman, folks, so that alone will, I hope, encourage more fiction readers to give this book a try).

I think one reason I have hesitated about writing a full review is that too many reviews have spoiled the surprise—and, in fact, even the back of my paperback copy spoils it! I can’t understand why the publisher, and then many reviewers, didn’t allow Fowler to reveal key plot elements in her own way. This is why, after worrying about whether I could write about this book without spoilers, I decided to use the short synopsis from the Man Booker Prize website. I’d recommend that anyone interested simply read the book, without looking at any further reviews or descriptions beforehand. I will say, though, that I knew the “surprise” before starting the novel, and I still loved it. Nevertheless, I would have loved to experience the reveal (or really, series of reveals) as Fowler no doubt intended.

My rating for We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves is 5 of 5 stars.

Mini Reviews of Fall Reads

Lately, my reading seems to be far out-pacing my blogging, and I’m behind on writing reviews. In order to catch up a bit, I decided to post mini reviews for a few of the books I’ve read recently, so I can at least record my thoughts. I’m gradually coming to the realization, which I know some of my fellow book bloggers have discovered, that I may not be able to post a lengthy, well-considered review of every single book I read.

So here are a few thoughts about some of my recent reads this fall:

Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

I have certainly NOT been in the market for more post-apocalyptic/dystopian novels; in fact, I am quite ready for some POST-post-apocalyptic fiction! Please, writers, please. But I decided to read Station Eleven after Mandel’s book landed on the National Book Award longlist. And I do see why this novel has received mostly flattering reviews. Mandel’s premise of a traveling troupe of Shakespearean actors and musicians, moving about the countryside and performing two decades after the great flu pandemic has decimated the population, is absolutely fascinating. In fact, I wanted to hear more about the woman who established the group (the Conductor) and the other itinerant players in the Traveling Symphony. I felt like Mandel had an amazing idea but didn’t fully develop it.

Instead, she takes the story back and forth between the Traveling Symphony and the time before the flu pandemic, but to me, the sections in the novel before the flu lacked interest. The characters in the pre-flu period seem to exhibit a great deal of malaise and unhappiness; no doubt Mandel is making a point, but it doesn’t make for very gripping reading. The heart and great strength of her story, I think, lies with the players of the Traveling Symphony and their efforts to not merely survive, but to create art and beauty in a harsh and unforgiving world. These sections make the novel a worthwhile read. My rating for Station Eleven is about a 3.5 stars out of 5.

How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran

Caitlin Moran’s coming-of-age novel was released in August of this year, amid much fanfare (a bestseller in the UK! Gushing blurbs from Lena Dunham and Helen Fielding!). Moran, of course, is known for her essay collection, How to Be A Woman, which I have not read. How to Build A Girl was for me, a perfectly pleasant read. Sometimes I found it laugh-out-loud funny, and that is always a welcome surprise in a novel. I think, though, that perhaps the buzz for the book outpaced the novel itself, and at times I felt that the plot and characters were lacking something. I felt, too, that it seemed less like a novel than a sort of fictionalized memoir of Moran’s teen years in the 1990s. I appreciated Moran’s voice, but it didn’t quite click with me as a work of fiction—at least, not as much I had expected. I would rate it as 3 out of 5 stars, but still note that I think many readers will find it an amusing and enjoyable read.

Review of Rainey Royal by Dylan Landis

Rainey Royal by Dylan Landis
Publisher: Soho Press
Publication Date: September 9, 2014
Length: 246 pages
Source: Library copy

A teenage bully, a talented artist, a loyal friend, an abandoned daughter, an abused child—Rainey Royal is all of these things. In her new novel Rainey Royal, Dylan Landis tells 14 stories about her title character and her passage to adulthood. But this hypnotizing and unnerving novel is more than the tale of one girl; through Rainey, Landis sheds light on the complex, precarious experience of girlhood.

The Story: In 1970s Greenwich Village, teenage Rainey Royal lives in a deteriorating brownstone with her father Howard, a jazz musician so revered that young acolytes arrive to learn from the master . . . as well as to sleep in the master’s home (often in the master’s bed), share his drugs, and eat his pizza. A musical commune is a strange place indeed to raise a child, and Howard’s approach to parenthood is one of, at best, benign neglect. Residing in the townhouse is also Howard’s good friend and fellow musician Gordy, with whom Howard “shares everything,” even, apparently, his wife, Rainey’s mother . . . that is, before she abruptly de-camped to an ashram in Colorado. Now Gordy comes unwanted to Rainey’s bedroom at night, to brush her hair and give her back rubs.

While Rainey fights off creepy Gordy’s advances, she finds solace in visits to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, in pleas to St Catherine of Bologna, the patron saint of artists, and in her friendship with a tough girl named Tina. Together, Rainey and Tina torment weaker girls at school, cause mischief great and small, and experiment with their blossoming sexual power (“engaging with the male teachers” inappropriately, as the school psychologist delicately puts it; Rainey and Tina call it The Private Game).

Landis follows Rainey--fierce, reckless, wounded Rainey--through her teens and early twenties, as she acts out, tries on different personas, and . . . somehow . . . survives her strange childhood and begins to grow into the woman and artist she was meant to be.

My Thoughts: I galloped through Rainey Royal, mesmerized by the intensity and heart of this book and wanting to consume every word of Landis’s fluid and elegant prose. Landis’ portrayal of Rainey is deeply nuanced and absolutely spot on; she has created a character that practically leaps off the page. Her Rainey is, quite convincingly, both prey and predator. Landis perfectly captures the crazy combination of deep vulnerability and sharp cruelty that teen girls can have. Rainey and Tina are nauseatingly, frighteningly powerful as they run emotional roughshod over classmates, and even teachers, at school, and delve into even more terrible behavior outside of school. They are desperately in need of adult guidance; without it, they must, in a sense, create themselves.

For me, Rainey Royal was a wonderful and entertaining read, although I felt the novel lost some of its power when Landis shifted the focus away from Rainey herself. Landis tells several of the final stories from the perspective of Rainey’s friends Tina and Leah, and while I appreciated those voices (especially Tina’s), I longed for more of Rainey’s singularly compelling voice as the novel drew to a close.

I hope Landis will write another novel book with these characters; I would love to know what happens to them as they pass out of new adulthood and into their thirties and beyond. Landis’s story collection Normal People Don't Live Like This, published in 2009, focused on Leah and her mom, and of course Rainey is the star of Rainey Royal; perhaps in Landis’s next book, it will be time for the young Dr. Tina Dial to take center stage.

Review of A Sudden Light by Garth Stein

A Sudden Light by Garth Stein
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: September 30, 2014
Length: 416 pages
Source: Publisher through NetGalley

Garth Stein's A Sudden Light, a multi-generational family saga set in the Pacific Northwest, offers a promising premise, but Stein fails to deliver a nuanced and compelling novel. An improbable plot and unconvincing characters make this novel one that all but the most devoted of Stein's fans should probably skip.

The Story: It is the summer of 1990, and fourteen-year-old Trevor Riddell is hoping to save his parents’ troubled marriage. While his mother returns to her native England for the summer, Trevor has traveled to Seattle with his father, Jones, to prepare the family’s ancestral estate on Puget Sound for sale. Trevor’s great-great-grandfather Elijah Riddell, he learns, earned a fortune in the timber business, and built a massive home, Riddell House, out of giant, whole trees. Still living in the crumbling mansion are Trevor’s grandfather, who seems to be either senile or perpetually drunk or both, and his sultry, manipulative aunt Serena. There is dysfunction aplenty in this strange family, and tensions among its members mount as they attempt to sell the estate to developers. And it turns out there are other complications as well . . . namely, the ghost of a former ancestor who wants the estate returned to forestland. Trevor seeks to unlock the mysteries of Riddell House and his family’s past.

My Thoughts: When I read the publisher’s description of A Sudden Light, I thought the story seemed to have all the elements of a big, juicy novel: a coming-of-age story, a multi-generational family saga, and a Gothic, possibly haunted, house full of secrets to discover. I was interested in the Pacific Northwest setting, and imagined an interesting view into the timber industry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But despite the promising premise, these elements never come together to create a cohesive novel.

Trevor’s voice is never fully believable as that of a fourteen-year-old, so the novel falls flat as a coming-of-age story. The other characters are one-dimensional and sometimes sink to the level of mere caricature; the character of Trevor’s aunt Serena, especially, the only major female character, struck me as utterly implausible and, frankly, ridiculous. Stein’s dialogue is stilted; the characters interact in odd ways and periodically launch into soliloquies, but none of it sounds like something actual people might say.

The plot, moreover, seems to be missing something essential. Elijah Riddell, the family patriarch, has allegedly cursed the family with his many sins . . . but Stein never spells these sins out. Ok, he was a timber baron and cut down a lot of trees—that alone isn’t much to hang a good curse on. I couldn’t help thinking of Philipp Meyer’s excellent novel set in Texas, The Son; Meyer clearly unveils the family patriarch’s transgressions, and the fact that his actions reverberate through subsequent generations makes sense. In A Sudden Light, readers are asked to take for granted that Riddell’s ancestors must all pay the price for his unnamed actions.

As for the ghost . . . well, I don’t read many novels with supernatural elements, I’ll admit, so perhaps I’m not the best judge. But for me, in any case, the ghost story part in A Sudden Light didn’t come together very convincingly. The ghost seemed to me mostly a device to further the plot whenever a little additional explication was needed.

Although much in this novel didn’t work for me, I do think there are positive elements here. I was interested in the story of Ben, his lover, and his surprisingly understanding fiancée—I wanted to hear more about them, and perhaps to travel back in time into their world. It seemed to me that these characters alone might have made an intriguing basis for a novel. Stein writes movingly about nature and conservation; clearly he is passionate about the environment.

I haven’t read Garth Stein before. His previous novel, The Art of Racing in the Rain, of course, achieved phenomenal success, but I have to admit I can’t tell from A Sudden Light what endeared Stein to so many readers. With all of the wonderful new books available this fall, I would not recommend this novel.

I received a complimentary copy of this book for review consideration from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, through NetGalley.