The New People's Choice Award- US National Book Award Reaches Out to the Great Unwashed

Manna from Heaven for Award Tragic. To celebrate it's 60th anniversary the USA National Book Award crew have set-up a Blog-a Day where every winner of the fiction prize from 1950 to 2008, will be revisited, dissected, commented upon and generally given a fresh airing.

Some 77 works of fiction will be considered by a group of writers associated with the awards who will each submit their top three. From this a short list of six will be announced and the public invited to vote.

Oh, the smell of democracy is rampant! Even the IVY League awards are having to pull back the shutters and invite public involvement to maintain relevance in the age of Twitter, My Space and giant plasma screens. Tragic has included a complete list of past National Fiction winners at the bottom of this blog.

To quote verbatim from the circular:

The blog will run from July 7th to September 21st, starting with Nelson Algren’s The Man With the Golden Arm, ending with Peter Matthiessen’s Shadow Country, and including works by Ralph Ellison, Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, Flannery O’Connor, Eudora Welty, and Alice McDermott. Discover lesser known but equally talented National Book Award Fiction Winners such as Conrad Richter, Wright Morris, and Robb Forman Dew. Then, on September 21st, you will have a chance to select The Best of the National Book Awards Fiction and win two tickets to the 2009 National Book Awards by visiting the Foundation’s web site at www.nationalbook.org, the first time in its history the Awards will open to a public vote.

Danger of Exposure?
American literature came in for a scathing attack last year from Nobel Prize Permanent Secretary, Horace Engdahl (left) who said it's no coincidence that most winners of the Nobel Literature Prize are European.To quote:

"Of course there is powerful literature in all big cultures, but you can't get away from the fact that Europe still is the centre of the literary world ... not the United States," . Speaking generally about American literature, he said U.S. writers are "too sensitive to trends in their own mass culture," dragging down the quality of their work." Ouch.

With the fiction winners of National Book Award Fiction Prize for the last 60 years on show, we will all get a chance to see if Horace was on the right track. Tragic rallied to the defence of US literature at the time, but having just reread some DeLillo and Carol Hall Oates he is no longer quite so sure! He suspects that there is a huge degree of cultural relativism inherent in the work of the nation's leading writers which, as a consequence, does not travel well. Wonder if Horace will read the shortlist?

Booker Influence? Booker Pitfalls!

The National seems to have borrowed the voting process from the somewhat ill-conceived Best of Booker, held to celebrate that prizes' 40th anniversary. The great unwashed got to vote on a dubious short list of six selected by some Judgeship luminaries. Despite the global prominence of the Booker, a mere 8,000 or so (unaudited?), bothered to vote. Let us hope that by opening up the process the National does not expose a glaring lack of interest in proceedings thus diminishing the sheen of mystery that surrounds this most esteemed prize.

All that was required to vote in the Booker, (as with other awards mentioned below) was an email address. Tragic has access, should he wish it, to thousands of email addresses through his book award listing empire . Hope someone is checking IP addresses in the process.

The Booker affair was criticised in some quarters as somewhat meaningless as many of the very books that had proved most popular with the public over the years, did not make the shortlist. The selection offered-up for public scrutiny was selected by the literati according to their no doubt rigorous criteri. The result, a set- menu chosen by an elite from which we then got to chose the 'very best dish' of all time.

The Booker, by the way, was won by Salman Rushdie for Midnight's Children, as was the 25th anniversary. Nothing better produced in the 15 years between 'Best Ofs'. Not a great success, despite the PR spin.

Other Awards Open to Public Vote

A number of other leading awards globally have sought to involve stakeholders.

The 2009 Irish Book Awards sought to maintain relevance by throwing open voting across some ten categories to a public vote, combined with an elaborate academy-based (vetting?) system from industry insiders. With more hype than an FA Cup final and sponsors dropping by the wayside at a rapid rate, we can't blame them for trying. Despite his rant against the process, Tragic was forced to back track slightly when the books that actually won were, mostly, quite fine (winners and blog here). Also, it sounded like everyone had fun.

More recently, one of Australia's leading leading awards, The New South Wales (NSW) Premier's Literary Prizes, threw open the shortlist of the Christina Stead Prize ($40,000 AUD) to a NSW public vote.

Tragic has not been privy to how many people actually voted but the great unwashed and the learned judges disagreed. The 2009 People's Choice Award for Fiction was won by Steve Toltz's – A Fraction of the Whole. whereas the Christina Stead was awarded to Joan London's The Good Parents. The latter was almost invisible to the public during the voting period with those of us interested enough having to seek out a copy whereas the Booker Prize shortlisted, A Fraction of the Whole, had been on the book stands for some time. Ironically, Tragic forgot to vote, and despite a having a group of literary friends, not a single one got involved. Oh dear.

Learning from Children's Choice
The most successful grass roots award processes are those revolving around Children's Choice Awards of which there are countless examples around the world. Check-out the list of one hundred or so Children & Young Adult Literary Awards Australia . Of course, Children's Choice Awards have the backing of school authorities, librarians et al, a captive and engaged audience in the young.

A Chance to Reach-out?

Tragic has also observed an almost zero interest in this prestigious prize outside of the USA. This is evidenced by a severe lack of visitor numbers (compared to others) to the award page hosted at Literary Awards Australia or visitors from outside the US to the page at Book Awards Online or LitAwards.com. Tragic might test this a little further by posting information about this initiative and details of past winners on his well frequented UK book award site, Literary Awards UK. Not holding his breath.

Perhaps this event presents an opportunity for the National to reach-out on behalf of American literary merit to reach-out to wider English speaking public, outside of the USA- putting aside Oscar Wilde's comment ' We have really everything in common with America nowadays except, of course, language'.

Postpone all Other Activity
The idea of examining past National winners is fun. Tragic has read 23 out of the 77 books, yet, despite being fully engaged with Book Award World, there is no way that he has the time to check-out blogs on some 77 works of fiction, however well constructed the narrative thread. He also wonders how many of those invited to consider the long long long list, will be across the works on offer?

Still, a bunch of roses to the organisers of the National for this initiative. Getting stakeholders, the reading public that is, involved is to be commended. Tragic looks forward to the Masonic like Pulitzer doing the same. For the thirty-three people who are old enough to have read every National Fiction Winner since 1950 it will no doubt be be particularly meaningful!

Let the Games Begin!
If Europe Central by William T. Vollmann gets on the shortlist Tragic swears he will give up book awards altogether. Likewise if The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard doesn't make it!

Tragic's top three pick? Challenging given 77 on offer!

2000 In America by Susan Sontag
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
2003 The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

Other picks
1960 Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth
1951 The Collected Stories by William Faulkner
1997 Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier
2008 Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend by Peter Matthiessen
2006 The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

Special mentions to the 1975 winner, Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone . It was the first National Book Award Winner Tragic ever read. He is still trying to finish the 2007 winner, Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson so he can't comment ( Tragic's Dad liked it though).

Not sure whether the list below is of any help. The links connect to Powells Books data- base and includes all the books under consideration back to 1950.

National Book Award Fiction Winners 1950 to 2008

2008

Shadow Country: A New Rendering of the Watson Legend by Peter Matthiessen

Review
"Shadow Country is a magnum opus. Matthiessen is meticulous in creating characters, lyrical in describing landscapes, and resolute in dissecting the values and costs that accompanied the development of this nation." Seattle Times (read more)

2007

Tree of Smoke: A Novel by Denis Johnson

Review
"To write a fat 600-page novel about the Vietnam War nearly 35 years after it ended is an act of literary bravado. To do so as brilliantly as Denis Johnson has in 'Tree of Smoke' is positively a miracle..." Washington Post Book Review (read more)

2006

The Echo Maker by Richard Powers

Review
"[A] muscularly ambitious book, one that scatters small yet piercing revelations among the more thunderous ideas....Powers may well be one of the smartest novelists now writing." Los Angeles Times (read more)

2005

Europe Central by William T. Vollmann

Review
"Vollmann [is] a master of synthesis and an intense and compassionate writer....[A] work of compelling intimacy....Vollmann opens new portals onto a genocidal war never to be forgotten, and illuminates both the misery and beauty human beings engender." Booklist (Starred Review) (read more)

2004

The News from Paraguay by Lily Tuck

Review
"Elegant.... Reading The News from Paraguay feels like looking into a crystal ball: seeing pieces of a garden, storm clouds building, lives passing." Los Angeles Times (read more)

2003

The Great Fire by Shirley Hazzard

Review
"The Great Fire is one of the most sophisticated novels I've read in years. Beautiful writing and acute psychological insights." Mark, Powells.com (read more)

2002

Three Junes by Julia Glass

Review
"Three Junes almost threatens to burst with all the life it contains. Glass' ability to locate the immense within the particular, and to simultaneously illuminate and deepen the mysteries of her characters' lives, would be marvelous in any novelist. In a first-time novelist, it's extraordinary." Michael Cunningham (read more)

2001

The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

Review
"Ultimately The Corrections, with its emphasis on sibling rivalry, the break between generations, and the clash between pious bourgeois respectability and the slippery mores of this new and alien America, recalls no novel so much as John Cheever's The Wapshot Scandal. The Corrections is just as funny and sad and smart as that masterpiece, and Franzen, like Cheever, reminds us of the timelessness of human folly." Stewart O'Nan, The Atlantic (read more)

2000

In America by Susan Sontag

Review
"Susan Sontag's new novel is a brilliant and profound investigation into the fate of thought and culture in America. Like her last novel, The Volcano Lover, In America masquerades as historical fiction, flaunting the stuff of drama and romance. It is something restless, hybrid, disturbing, original....Sontag gives us a convincing portrait of an artist who is losing her way, and it would be a pity if all the structural brilliance that surrounds her were to distract readers from her imperious, self-dramatizing and fallible character." Mark Rozzo, Los Angeles Times (read more)

1999

Waiting by Ha Jin

Review
"Ha Jin profoundly understands the conflict between the individual and society, between the timeless universality of the human heart and constantly shifting politics of the moment. With wisdom, restraint, and empathy for all his characters, he vividly reveals the complexities and subtleties of a world and a people we desperately need to know." Judges' Citation, National Book Award (read more)

1998

Charming Billy by Alice McDermott

Review
"McDermott fashions her story out of an accumulation of hints and evasions, secrets and lies. Emotions are closeted, muffled, purged. There are no explosive confrontations, no charged recriminations. Yet the drama is enormous, arising from the tension of what isn't said. Billy, an innocent who couldn't fathom that life is neither poetry nor prayer, is the silent center of a superbly crafted novel." Dan Cryer, Salon (read more)

1997

Cold Mountain by Charles Frazier

Publisher Comments
Based on stories in the author's family, this novel is about a wounded Civil War soldier who walks away from the hospital and finds his arduous way home to his sweetheart – a cultured young woman who has been forced to learn the brutal ways of farm life. The stories of the two lovers are intertwined; when they converge, they find that their worlds have changed radically, and so have they. (read more)

1996

Ship Fever and Other Stories by Andrea Barrett

Publisher Comments
The love of science, the science of love – and the struggle to reconcile the two – are the subjects of this remarkable collection, stories and a novella. Interweaving historical and fictional characters, these stories move between past and present as they negotiate the complex territory of ambition, failure, achievement, and shattered dreams. (read more)

1995

Sabbath's Theater by Phillip Roth

Publisher Comments
Mickey Sabbath, an aging, misanthropic puppeteer, embarks on a journey into his checkered past when his long-time mistress dies. His journey turns into succession of disasters. And while Sabbath wants to die, he still has too much life in him to succumb. (read more)

1994 A Frolic of His Own by William Gaddis
1993 The Shipping News by E. Annie Proulx
1992 All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
1991 Mating by Norman Rush
1990 Middle Passage by Charles Johnson
1989 Spartina by John Casey
1988 Paris Trout by Pete Dexter
1987 Paco's Story by Larry Heinemann
1986 World's Fair by E.L. Doctorow
1986 Arctic Dreams by Barry Lopez
1985 White Noise by Don Delillo
1985 Easy in the Islands (1st Novel Award) by Bob Shacochis
1984 Stones for Ibarra (1st Novel Award) by Harriet Doerr
1984 Victory Over Japan by Ellen Gilchrist
1983 The Women of Brewster Place by Gloria Naylor
1983 The Collected Stories by Eudora Welty
1983 The Color Purple by Alice Walker
1982 Dale Loves Sophie to Death (1st Novel Award) by Robb Forman Dew
1982 Rabbit is Rich by John Updike
1981 Plains Song by Wright Morris
1981 Sister Wolf (1st Novel Award) by Ann Arensberg
1980 Birdy (1st Novel Award) by William Wharton
1980 Sophie's Choice by William Styron
1980 The World According to Garp by John Irving
1979 Going After Cacciato by Tim O'Brien
1978 Blood Ties by Mary Lee Settle
1977 The Spectator Bird by Wallace Stegner
1977 Master Tung`s Western Chamber Romance by Li Li Chen
1976 JR by William Gaddis
1975 The Hair of Harold Roux by Thomas Williams
1975 Dog Soldiers by Robert Stone
1974 Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon
1974 A Crown of Feathers and Other Stories by Isaac Bashevis Singer
1973 Augustus by John Williams
1973 Chimera by John Barth
1972 The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor
1971 Mr. Sammler's Planet by Saul Bellow
1970 Them by Joyce Carol Oates
1969 Steps by Jerzy Kosinski
1968 The Eighth Day by Thornton Wilder
1967 The Fixer by Bernard Malamud
1966 The Collected Stories by Katherine Anne Porter
1965 Herzog by Saul Bellow
1964 The Centaur by John Updike
1963 Morte d'Urban by J.F. Powers
1962 The Moviegoer by Walker Percy
1961 The Waters of Kronos by Conrad Richter
1960 Goodbye Columbus by Philip Roth
1959 The Magic Barrell by Bernard Malamud
1958 Wapshot Chronicle by John Cheever
1957 The Field of Vision by Wright Morris
1956 Ten North Frederick by John O'Hara
1955 A Fable by William Faulkner
1954 The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow
1953 Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison
1952 From Here to Eternity by James Jones
1951 The Collected Stories by William Faulkner
1950 The Man with the Golden Arm by Nelson Algren