Literary Always a Bridesmaid • August 2019

[sun surfer]

Help select what we'll read and discuss next!


The topic is Always a Bridesmaid.

This topic is for books that have been nominated or shortlisted for major awards but have never won any.


Detailed nominating and voting guidelines can be found here. Basically, nominations are open for about four days and each person may nominate up to three literary selections which will go automatically to the vote. Voting by post then opens for four days, and a voter may give each nomination either one or two votes but only has a limited number of votes to use which is equal to the number of nominations minus one. Any questions, feel free to ask.

We hope that you will read the selection with us and join in the discussion.

*

Nominations are complete. Initial voting is now complete. Run-off voting is complete. Final results-

• The Glass Room by Simon Mawer
  Post . Goodreads . 405 Pages . Votes 0 . Run-off – . 2009 . England & Italy
  
  
• Great House by Nicole Krauss
  Post . Goodreads . 304 Pages . Votes 2 . Run-off – . 2010 . the U.S.
  
  
• Salt Rain by Sarah Armstrong
  Post . Goodreads . 224 Pages . Votes 4 . Run-off 0 . 2004 . Australia
  
  
• Hot Milk by Deborah Levy
  Post . Goodreads . 220 Pages . Votes 2 . Run-off – . 2016 . South Africa & England
  
  
• Lies of Silence by Brian Moore
  Post . Goodreads . 230 Pages . Votes 4 . Run-off 2 . 1990 . Northern Ireland, Canada & the U.S.
  
  
• Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth
  Post . Goodreads . 192 Pages . Votes 3 . Run-off – . 1980 . England

[Bookworm_Girl]

I like the topic. It's not too hard to find the nominees that didn't win through google searches. The official websites for awards are one source. Also sometimes Wikipedia will have the information too.

[sun surfer]

Thanks, Bookworm_Girl. There’s a LOT of possibilities, considering all nominees from all the various major awards from all their years. Another way someone could look for nominees is on Goodreads- there are usually lists for nominees/shortlists of awards. They’re often by year so Wikipedia might be better if all years are included on one page. I like looking on Goodreads because I can always click a book and see its page to help judge if I might be interested. Also, an easy way to check what a book has won (or that it hasn’t won anything major, heh) is on Goodreads- at the top of a book’s page one of the info categories is awards won with a list of them all, if any.

[Bookworm_Girl]

My first nomination is The Glass Room by Simon Mawer.

Booker Prize Nominee (2009), Exclusive Books Boeke Prize Nominee (2011), European Book Prize Nominee for Fiction (2012), Walter Scott Prize Nominee (2010), Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize Nominee (2010)

From Amazon UK:

Cool. Balanced. Modern. The precisions of science, the wild variance of lust, the catharsis of confession and the fear of failure - these are things that happen in the Glass Room. High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2 gather, and eventually the family must flee... But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events become full-circle.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I would like to nominate The Great House by Nicole Krauss as my second book. It did win the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for Fiction (2011). Does this count as a major award? I've not heard of it before, and it doesn't seem like something people outside the US would know.

Orange Prize Nominee for Fiction Shortlist (2011), National Book Award Finalist for Fiction (2010)

From Goodreads:

For twenty-five years, a reclusive American novelist has been writing at the desk she inherited from a young Chilean poet who disappeared at the hands of Pinochet's secret police, one day a girl claiming to be the poet's daughter arrives to take it away, sending the writer's life reeling. Across the ocean, in the leafy suburbs of London, a man caring for his dying wife discovers, among her papers, a lock of hair that unravels a terrible secret. In Jerusalem, an antiques dealer slowly reassembles his father's study, plundered by the Nazis in Budapest in 1944.

Connecting these stories is a desk of many drawers that exerts a power over those who possess it or have given it away. As the narrators of Great House make their confessions, the desk takes on more and more meaning, and comes finally to stand for all that has been taken from them, and all that binds them to what has disappeared.

Great House is a story haunted by questions: What do we pass on to our children and how do they absorb our dreams and losses? How do we respond to disappearance, destruction, and change?

[Bookworm_Girl]

My third nomination is Salt Rain by Sarah Armstrong.

It was shortlisted for multiple awards including the Miles Franklin, the Queensland Premier's Literary Awards and the Dobbie Award.

From Amazon AU:

In this enchanting debut, a young girl faces the secrets buried in the mud-rich, rain-soaked landscape of her mother’s childhood. When fourteen-year-old Allie’s mother, Mae, mysteriously disappears in the dark waters of the harbor, Allie is taken by Julia—an aunt she barely knows—to stay at the dilapidated dairy farm where her mother grew up.

As the days pass and the heat of the wet season swells, Allie confidently waits for her mother’s call, certain that Mae will reappear as she always has in the past. In the meantime, Allie watches her aunt, who is determined to replant the trees of the forest and undo the damage her family has inflicted upon the land. And Allie lurks around the cabin belonging to her mother’s first love, a man who still lives deep within the valley.

When the truth about Mae’s childhood and Allie’s mythical father, the Balloon Man, begins to surface, Allie must sort through the lies her mother has told her and come to grips with the many secrets held close in the valley.

[sun surfer]

Wonderful nominations, Bookworm_Girl. I guess we can each decide what counts as ‘major’ but for what it’s worth I agree with you about the Anisfield-Wolf.

I basically have mine sorted but am still waffling between two. I’ll post them before beginning the vote, which will probably be some hours away from starting depending on when I can get the time to organise the first post list to be ready.

Until the vote starts nominations are still open if anyone else wants to post any!

[sun surfer]

All right, I'm going to post my nominees all at once and the update the list and get the vote started.

All my nominees ended up being Booker nominees, but I really did look at nominees from other prizes! My longlist was very long and I slowly winnowed to four and then three, and it just happened that they all ended up being Booker nominees (even the fourth that I'm not nominating). Oddly enough, since I tend to notice little things like this afterwards, these books also didn't have many or any other nominations from other awards, while most on my longer list had multiple nominations each from different awards. Also oddly, of the final four I had narrowed to, one was published in 1970, one 1980 and one 1990 (the other breaking the mould being published 2016). For anybody curious I'll mention here rather than at the end that the book that I had to decide on not to nominate was The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark from 1970, nominee for the (Lost) Man Booker Prize, something of a thriller, a 'whydunnit' so to speak, about a woman who suddenly decides to rather drastically change herself over and fly south, where something bad will happen. Anyway, onto my actual nominees!


-Hot Milk by Deborah Levy

This was nominated for the Booker and the Goldsmiths Prize. It's about an adult daughter and mysteriously partially paralysed mother who travel together to the coast of southern Spain for a 'last stand' of sorts to see a famous but strange doctor to try to cure the mother. Goodreads, 220 pages, 2016, South Africa & England

Sofia, a young anthropologist, has spent much of her life trying to solve the mystery of her mother's unexplainable illness. She's frustrated with Rose and her constant complaints but utterly relieved to be called to abandon her own disappointing fledgling adult life. She and Rose travel to the searing, arid coast of southern Spain to see a famous consultant, Dr. Gomez—their very last chance—in the hope that he might cure Rose's unpredictable limb paralysis, but Dr. Gomez has strange methods that seem to have little to do with physical medicine, and as the treatment progresses, Rose's illness becomes increasingly baffling. Sofia's role as detective—tracking Rose's symptoms in an attempt to find the secret motivation for her pain—deepens as she discovers her own desires in this transient desert community.

-Lies of Silence by Brian Moore

This was nominated for the Booker. It's about a man who, during the Troubles, is ordered to park his car at a Belfast hotel carpark. There is a moral dilemma in that he believes the car contains a bomb that will kill many people at the hotel if exploded, but he is warned that if he doesn't do it his kidnapped wife (whom he was on the verge of leaving for another woman) will be killed. Goodreads, 230 pages, 1990, Northern Ireland, Canada & the U.S.

When Michael Dillon is ordered by the IRA to park his car in the carpark of a Belfast hotel, he is faced with a moral choice which leaves him absolutely nowhere to turn. He knows that he is planting a bomb that would kill and maim dozens of people. But he also knows that if he doesn't, his wife will be killed.

-Pascali's Island by Barry Unsworth

This was nominated for the Booker. It's a book about paranoia set on a small Greek island in 1908, the waning days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. A man, Basil Pascali, has lived there for 20 years working as a spy, regularly sending updates to Constantinople but never hearing a peep from anyone there regarding his mission, or anything else for that matter. He begins to become worried the villagers might have found him out, and in the midst of this a charming Englishman arrives on the island and becomes entangled with the woman that Pascali pines for. This all leads to a 'complex game' being played out. Goodreads, 192 pages, 1980, England

The year is 1908, the place, a small Greek island in the declining days of the crumbling Ottoman Empire. For twenty years Basil Pascali has spied on the people of his small community and secretly reported on their activities to the authorities in Constantinople. Although his reports are never acknowledged, never acted upon, he has received regular payment for his work. Now he fears that the villagers have found him out and he becomes engulfed in paranoia. In the midst of his panic, a charming Englishman arrives on the island claiming to be an archaeologist, and charms his way into the heart of the woman for whom Pascali pines. A complex game is played out between the two where cunning and betrayal may come to haunt them both.

[sun surfer]

Nominations are complete and voting is now open!

Voting will close exactly four days from this post.

Each person has FIVE votes to use.

[AnotherCat]

I'll be relying on you folks for having made great picks .

I do not follow nor pay much attention to any of the prizes for books so was not really qualified to make any nominations. Pretty much all I know is that of the two Bookers awarded to my own countrymen the first was rubbish (in my own opinion and that of many) and was a one book wonder as the author never wrote another book.

The second, I can best quote a book reviewer (so open in his response he must be honest) when asked if he would be reviewing it the response was that he would not be reading it any time soon - I bought a copy to see for myself, was never able to get into it (it is also starting to look like a one book wonder as nothing else from the author has appeared in the 6 years since - at least not prolific).

So looking forward to a surprise in among the nominations of also rans .

[sun surfer]

Only two Kiwi Bookers? Seems like there should be more. Too bad neither ended up appealing to you.

I might sound like a broken record, but of course if you'd like (or anyone else likes) feel free to vote even if you didn't nominate anything. The more votes the merrier! But either way I hope you'll at least end up liking whichever selection we read a little better than the reads you mentioned, heh.

[sun surfer]

I'll give my votes to:

-1 for Salt Rain
-1 for Great House
-1 for Lies of Silence
-1 for Pascali's Island
-1 for Hot Milk

And now I've run dry of votes. I had a read of all the previews already and they all look appealing. I'd be happy to read any of the six. Salt Rain sounds very interesting and I really enjoyed the preview. Great House also sounds intriguing and I couldn't help but think the title uses two halves of two Dickens titles, Great Expectations and Bleak House. I'm not sure if that's coincidental or by design, but regardless it makes me curious what a book called Bleak Expectations would be like... Of course I'm also interested in the ones I nominated, and the preview of The Glass Room was interesting too, but I can't vote for them all.

[lxpose]

Originally Posted by AnotherCat

The second, I can best quote a book reviewer (so open in his response he must be honest) when asked if he would be reviewing it the response was that he would not be reading it any time soon - I bought a copy to see for myself, was never able to get into it (it is also starting to look like a one book wonder as nothing else from the author has appeared in the 6 years since - at least not prolific).

I guess you are referring to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (2013)? I really enjoyed it.

[AnotherCat]

Originally Posted by lxpose

I guess you are referring to The Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (2013)?

Yes.

I had read her first novel The Rehearsal previously and thought that a pretty lumpy effort, even for a first go, together with having a tired theme. I didn't see a budding super novelist in it and so was quite surprised with the The Luminaries Booker.

But maybe there is another book coming, six years in the works so far, that will establish an enduring reputation, otherwise may be another Keri Hulme (no second book for more than 30 years, although rumors fanned by her persist that she is still writing it )

[AnotherCat]

Hot Milk - 1
Lies of Silence - 2
Pascali's Island - 1
Salt Run - 1

Originally Posted by sun surfer

...But either way I hope you'll at least end up liking whichever selection we read a little better than the reads you mentioned, heh.

To take the safest course I voted for the four shortest books (that's a fib ).