...that your host is a dope. Apparently I got my days mixed up and the National Book Awards will be announced tonight not last night. So sorry, this is what I get for reading McNews. On this theme here's a few links regarding the awards including a nice profile of Distinguished Contribution medal winner Judy Blume (thanks to Laura Lippman for the heads up). A good many more can be found at Maud Newtons site.
Judy Blume seems like an interesting choice in light of the controversy over Stephen King's award and speech last year. While the fiction nominees tend toward the extremely obscure this year, the keynote award is given to another "big" writer. Is Blume kind of a literary compromise? Even though she has had huge commercial success, she still has a dash of critical respectability and her adult novels have been book club picks and what not. What do you all think of the choice? I was never allowed to read her books as a kid growing up in a Baptist school. By the time I moved to a public high school I was fully entrenched in crime and suspense was too busy sneaking Stephen King books into the house to worry about Judy Blume. Did I miss anything?
Also I previously linked to an interview with James Lee Burke that said he was nominated for a National Book Award and Pulitzer Prize. Well I checked the nomination lists for both of those awards and the novel in question IN THE MOON OF RED PONIES doesn't appear on either of them. I think this may be another case in the increasing confusion between being "submitted" for a Pulitzer or National Book Award and being "nominated" for said award.
A publisher is only allowed so many "submissions" for a major award so being picked is certainly good news for the author, but from all of the books "submitted," which could number in the hundreds, a final "nomination list is picked usually containing three to five titles. I know this was the case a year or so ago with Carolyn Hart's novel LETTER FROM HOME. The book was submitted by the publisher for the Pulitzer Prize but several people I heard said it was nominated for the Pulitzer. Not anyone's fault persay but confusing none-the-less. Another related example is Stephen Hunter's latest novel HAVANA. The cover of the book reads "Winner of the Pulitzer Prize." Well HAVANA wasn't the winner or the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Stephen Hunter was the winner of a Pulitzer for journalism years ago. In my mind, that's unfair marketing.
As far as I know, the only two "popular" novels to get serious Pulitzer attention are Loren Estleman's BLOODY SEASON which was nominated in 1988 and LONESOME DOVE which actually won in 1986; both novels were westerns.
Hold on a minute. If I ever win a Pulitzer Prize, in any category, that information is sure as hell going to be prominently displayed on every book I write thereafter. Same goes for an Edgar and the other mystery award. Same, in fact, goes for any possible award in any field. I don't think it's unfair advertising. Hunter's Pulitzer shows he can write. This helps the buyer know that at the very least, they won't be groaing at at every sentence. (Actually haven't read the book, so I could be wrong. Still, in principle...)
Posted by: Steven | November 17, 2004 at 05:04 PM
"This helps the buyer know that at the very least, they won't be groaing at at every sentence. "
Or groaning. I meant groaning.
Posted by: Steven | November 17, 2004 at 05:05 PM
Don't be so hard on yourself, Steve. Groaing is a dying art. Ever since the rise of jazz music and the hula-hoop, groaing clubs have closed, the specialist groaing press died off and now you're hard-pressed to find any decent groaers who share your interest anywhere outside the major cities.
I think anything you do - groaing at every sentence in a book, for instance - that promotes this fine tradition is really a wonderful gesture.
Posted by: John Rickards | November 17, 2004 at 05:55 PM
I profiled Burke back in 1997 and thought one of his early works was a finalist for the Pulitzer. But the website only lists finalists from 1980 on. (Not sure if finalists weren't named before that date, or what.)
Anyone can be nominated for the Pulitzer (or the Edgar for that matter, but the Pulitzer does involve a fee.) In journalism, there are two rounds of finalists; only the second is publicized, after the fact, but those who make the earlier cut in the newspaper categories often find out via leaks. The Pulitzer boards leaks like a sieve. How else could newspapers have the champagne and cake on hand? But the publishers have no reps on the board, so they seldom have any advance notice.
No problem with Hunter touting his Pulitzer for film criticism on his novels, but what if, say, a winner of the Pulitzer for public service used that information on a novel's cover? While it is, in many ways, the most prestigious Pulitzer, it can be won by a group of people and doesn't necessarily speak to the quality of the writing.
And, by the by, some Pulitzer winners for journalism are god-awful writers. Don't ask me to name names!
Posted by: Laura | November 17, 2004 at 06:12 PM
I do think Burke was nominated for THE LOST GET BACK BOOGIE, published by LSU University Press back in the 80s. Yes indeed, Laura.
Posted by: Neil | November 17, 2004 at 07:02 PM
Well it wouldn't be one of my guest posts if something in it wasn't wrong. Of course I'm just testing you all to see how much you catch. Nobody can really be this stupid, right? Shut up John.
Posted by: Bryon | November 17, 2004 at 07:06 PM
Heaven forbid that the common man ever read and enjoy Pulitzer fiction.
How would the jurists ever show their faces in society again?
Posted by: Irate Savant | November 18, 2004 at 01:13 AM
Didn't Anne Tyler win a Pulitzer? I never read Breathing Lessons, but Accidental Tourist was popular fiction. Pretty good, too.
Posted by: David Montgomery | November 18, 2004 at 09:57 AM
And John Kennedy Toole's A CONFEDERACY OF DUNCES won the Pulitzer as well. Is it popular fiction? Hell if I know, but it's brilliant and readable.
Posted by: Sarah | November 18, 2004 at 10:01 AM
Didn't J.K. Toole kill himself right before his book was accepted by the publisher? Or am I thinking of another Pulitzer winner?
Posted by: Steven | November 18, 2004 at 01:34 PM
I was glad to see the selection of Judy Blume for an honorary National Book Award, but I'm frankly biased, because I attended grade school with her son Larry just as _Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing_ was coming out. In her work, not only has Blume made kids feel that they are not alone but also has created opportunities for dialogue on difficult issues---for example, the loss of a parent in _Tiger Eyes_.
Posted by: Elizabeth | November 18, 2004 at 03:04 PM