"... where on earth can Homes go now?

"An often breathtakingly dark and crazy satire on modern American life caused a literary upset on Wednesday night  [June 5, 2013] when [May We Be Forgiven by A.M. Homes] won the women's prize for fiction beating novels by Zadie Smith, Kate Atkinson and the bookies' favourite, Hilary Mantel.

     AM Homes became the fifth American in a row to be named winner of the £30,000 prize, formerly known as the Orange, for her sixth novel, May We Be Forgiven. The actor Miranda Richardson, who chaired the judging panel, said the book went beyond the prize's criteria of originality, accessibility and excellence. 'It was so fresh and so funny – darkly funny – and so unexpectedly moving,' she said.'
— Mark Brown, The Guardian
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"The first section is a tour-de-force of pitch-black comedy.... The story begins at Thanksgiving: Harry Silver, an under-achieving Nixon scholar, describes his hatred for his taller, richer, more aggressive brother George, a TV network boss, who sits 'at the head of the big table, picking turkey out of his teeth, talking about himself.' George's children, aged 10 and 11, are 'sat like lumps at the table, hunched, or more like curled, as if poured into their chairs, truly spineless, eyes focused on their small screens, the only thing in motion their thumbs – one texting friends no one had ever seen and the other killing digitised terrorists.' Harry is picking the stuffing out of the 'heirloom' turkey carcass in the kitchen, his lips smeared with grease, when his sister-in-law Jane suddenly kisses him on the lips.

     A few months later George is arrested. He has run a red light and smashed into a people carrier, killing a couple and leaving their son orphaned; it's not clear that it was an accident. Then, in startlingly quick succession, all sorts of bad things happen: an affair, a murder, a divorce; and Harry suddenly finds himself in sole charge of his niece and nephew. After the first exhilarating 50 pages, the reader wonders: where on earth can Homes go now?"
—Theo Tait, The Guardian
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Man Booker Shortlist Unveiled

"Orwell’s second best-selling novel behind 1984
was rejected four times before going on to sell
20 million copies." — Flavorwire

"Novelists who struggled long and hard just to get their books into the shops after a string of rejections by big publishers have joined the more established literary names of Hilary Mantel and Will Self on a Man Booker shortlist which this year celebrates 'the power and depth of prose.' The six books in contention for the £50,000 prize came from what the chair of judges, Peter Stothard, called 'an exhilarating year for fiction – the strongest, I would say, for more than a decade.'"
— Mark Brown and Alison Flood, The Guardian
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"The six books were chosen by a panel of judges chaired by Sir Peter Stothard, Editor of the Times Literary Supplement. The shortlisted books were selected from the longlist of 12 announced in July.
     The shortlist is: [...]
     Tan Twan Eng, The Garden of Evening Mists (Myrmidon Books); Deborah Levy, Swimming Home (And Other Stories/Faber & Faber); Hilary Mantel, Bring up the Bodies (Fourth Estate); Alison Moore, The Lighthouse (Salt); Will Self, Umbrella (Bloomsbury); Jeet Thayil, Narcopolis (Faber & Faber).
     Peter Stothard, Chair of judges, comments: 'After re-reading an extraordinary longlist of twelve, it was the pure power of prose that settled most debates. We loved the shock of language shown in so many different ways and were exhilarated by the vigour and vividly defined values in the six books that we chose – and in the visible confidence of the novel's place in forming our words and ideas.'”
— The Man Booker Prizes
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Buy all of the Man Booker nominees here...

NEWS FLASH: Esi Edugyan in the Running for the Orange Prize

Photo: Chad Hipolito for The Globe and Mail

"Canadian author Esi Edugyan is among six finalists for Britain's Orange Prize for fiction by women. Ms. Edugyan’s Half Blood Blues, a Booker Prize finalist [and Giller winner] has been shortlisted for the prestigious award. Three American novelists are also among the six finalists.
     Organizers on Tuesday announced a shortlist that includes Cynthia Ozick's Foreign Bodies, Ann Patchett's State of Wonder and Madeleine Miller's debut The Song of Achilles."
— The Associated Press (via The Globe and Mail)
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"Former Orange prize winner Ann Patchett is in the running for the award once more. She was shortlisted alongside novels exploring subjects from adultery to ancient Greek love to wartime atrocities in Romania.
     Six novelists were named as contenders for the 17th annual award of a prize dedicated to excellence in fiction written by women.
     Three American writers were named: Patchett, Madeline Miller and Cynthia Ozick, who, at 84, is the oldest writer to have been shortlisted. There was one Briton, Georgina Harding, an Irish writer, Anne Enright, and the Canadian Esi Edugyan."
— Mark Brown, The Guardian
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Get books by all of these authors here...