James Tait Black Shortlists

The shortlists for the James Tait Black, Britain's oldest literary award have been announced. The contenders for the fiction prize are:

• The View from Castle Rock by Alice Munro
• The Night Watch by Sarah Waters
• The Road by Cormac McCarthy
• Seven Lies by James Lasdun
• Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
• Electricity by Ray Robinson

There are some very strong contenders: Orange winner Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, as well as Pulitzer winner Cormac McCarthy and Booker shortlisted Sarah Walters.

But the shortlist also spotlights other excellent works which have slipped a little more below the radar (well my radar at least!): The View from Castle Rock is a collection of stories by Canadian author Alice Munro: in the first part of the book they are based on material Munro uncovered when researching her own family history in Scotland, and in the second, they are based on more autobiographical material. (I've much enjoyed some of Munro's earlier stories - she has to be one of the best short-fiction writers alive.)

Dina will be very happy to see her friend and former coursemate Ray Robinson, on the list! (The only debut novelist on it.) Electricity, written as part of his PhD in creative writing features a protagonist who is epileptic but refuses the label. (On the Lancaster University website, Robinson describes his research and talks about working on his writing in an academic environment.)

Seven Lies is James Lasdun's second novel, and is a thriller set in Berlin and New York. The blurb on the award website describes it as:

... a page-turning study of betrayal, guilt and shame with just enough allegory about it to keep America’s National Security State in unsettling focus.

(I can see my friend Kaykay getting all excited about this one!)

You can read more about all the shortlisted fiction, as well as the books listed for the The James Tait Black award for biography here, and in the Guardian.

The Night Watch

Wasn't sure if I'd be reviewing Sarah Waters' The Night Watch for Starmag or not, which is why I didn't blog about it straight after I'd read it. As it happened, Andrew Ng did the job, and did it very well indeed. His review appeared in Friday's Star, and echo my feelings about the book. Unlike Andrew, I haven't read any of Waters' other books (yeah, I know, I know), so was coming to the author without preconceptions.

There was much that I did really like about the novel. I like the way that the story moves backward in time. It opens in 1947. The scars of war are still apparent in the bombed out streets. Waters' create a chain of characters each carrying guilty secrets. The promise that we going to learn the answers propels us through the story, although it is not in the end completely fulfilled. (But then, isn't life like that?)

I particularly like the structure of the book - the way it opens in the post war years and then moves backwards to tell the stories of different individuals I like the almost accidental way their lives intersect. Many of the scenes take place at night when emotions are rawest : each scene is like a searchlight illuminating momentarily important moments in the characters' lives.

Waters' recreaction of the London blitz is excellent and I think that this is the first time that fiction had taken me there.

Another Shot

If you don't win one literary prize, hopefully you get a shot at another! I'm happy for Ian McEwan whose Saturday has won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize after losing out so badly in the Booker stakes.

And while Sarah Walters lost out to Zadie Smith in the Orange stakes, I'm sure we'll be seeing The Night Watch on the list for other awards later in the year. (It will eligible because it was only published this year, unlike the other Orange shortlisted books.) It is that good, believe me. John Ezard in the Guardian reckons it has a "formidable chance" of taking the Booker or the Whitbread.

I'd have hated to be a judge for either the Orange or the Booker with so many strong titles to choose from. And I am still perplexed by Robert McCrum's article on the novel losing its way. I am one happy reader and will let you know if that changes.

Related Posts

His Saturday - My Sunday (4/9/05)
The James Tait Black Shortlist Announced (3/5/06)

Best Gay Read

Tales of the City, Armistead Maupin's six-volume chronicle of gay and straight life in San Francisco, was hailed yesterday as Britain's favourite lesbian or gay novel in the Big Gay Read, the Guardian reports. Maupin will collect his award at Manchester's Queer Up North festival.

Tales first appeared as a daily serial in the San Francisco Chronicle in 1976 and then became a highly acclaimed smash-hit miniseries on PBS in 1994. More Tales of the City and a novel, Night City followed. (Do visit the Tales of the City website to find out more about Maupin and his works.)

I haven't read the book, but realised as I read the synopsis that I'd seen the excellent film based on it by accident (as all my TV viewing tend to be!) on Astro. Time, methinks, to buy the book.

Second prize went to Sarah Walters for Tipping the Velvet. She who was also placed fifth for Fingersmith.

Related Posts:

The Big Gay Read(21/8/05)
The Transgendered Reading List (23/11/05)