The Man Booker Prize Longlist - with Thrillers! (UPDATED)

The longlist for the Man Booker Prize is...well...you be the judge. NETHERLAND is a total shoo-in for the shortlist. John Sutherland won't have to curry his proof copy of THE ENCHANTRESS OF FLORENCE. And CHILD 44? Quick, when was the last time an out and out thriller got anywhere near the Booker Prize? (as Michael Collins' THE KEEPERS OF TRUTH comes the closest.)

UPDATE, 7/31: The inclusion of CHILD 44 on the longlist has provoked quite a bit of reaction. Canongate publisher Jamie Byng isn't terribly happy about it. Maxim Jakubowski, however, is pleased. And in a piece appearing in Friday's print edition of the Los Angeles Times, I wonder what it means for the so-called genre wars:

Every summer, the announcement of the Man Booker Prize long-list kicks off a conversation that lasts until October, when a winner is named. So it's no shock that this year's slate, announced Tuesday, has done exactly that. What is surprising is the presence of one name among the 13 long-listed authors: Tom Rob Smith, a 29-year-old London screenwriter who made a critical and commercial splash earlier this year with his debut thriller, "Child 44."

That's right: The prize known for its literary acumen has put a thriller on the long-list for the first time since such lists were made public and official in 2001. Needless to say, it's a development some book people find problematic. "I cannot respect a judging committee that decides to pick a book like 'Child 44,' a fairly well-written and well-paced thriller that is no more than that," fumed Canongate publisher Jamie Byng on the Booker Prize message forum. One suspects that if Edmund Wilson -- who dismissed genre fiction in his 1945 New Yorker essay "Who Cares Who Killed Roger Ackroyd?" -- could climb out of his grave to protest and then die again, he would.

And yet, if "Child 44" -- a serial killer novel that takes place in the last years of Stalin's Russia -- appears at first glance to be a brash upstart, a closer look suggests that its inclusion might not be so unlikely after all. Indeed, this is the most recent example of the blurring of the line between crime fiction and literature, which makes me hopeful that the so-called genre wars are lurching toward, if not an end, then at least a tentative cease-fire....

Read on for the rest and naturally, the backblog is wide open for discussion.

Comments

[Charles Finch]

A Fraction of the Whole=Awesome.

[Keith Raffel]

Sarah, it would be great if some of today's crime fiction masters were recognized for what they do -- writing many of the best damn books published each year. In your article, you mention the books Man Booker winner John Banville has written as Benjamin Black. In a favorable review of Christine Black in The NY Times, Kathryn Harrison suggests that he's slumming, writing something for "his own guilty pleasure." The Times of London reviewer implictly looks down on the genre: "Banville may have swapped the literary novel for crime, but he hasn’t abandoned writing with elegance and beauty." As most crime novelists do?

[Keith Raffel]

Whoops. Sorry. The title of Banville's book is Christine Falls, not Christine Black.

[David J. Montgomery]

This silly discussion again? I love the outrage of these imbeciles. They're acting like Tom Rob Smith showed up at their oh-so-veddy-proper literary salon and took a dump in the punchbowl.

[John Dishon]

Imbeciles? If you actually read the Jamie Byng article linked to above, you find out that Jamie is more upset about The Spare Room not being included then he is about Child 44 being included. He thinks other books are more worthy, but he doesn't say Child 44 is without merit.

You can be sensational all you want, but the "outrage" is mostly perpetrated by the genre community.

[David J. Montgomery]

I've always wanted to be a sensation, but somehow I doubt that comment will accomplish it. As for outrage... I see more than a touch of it in Byng's remarks, but none from anyone in the "genre community." So I'm not sure what you're referring to.

Really, though...We're talking about a guy who's pissed off that a thriller (a thriller, of all things! the horror) was nominated for an award, and a book that he published (!) was not. If that isn't more than a little silly, I don't know what is.

[David Young]

Yes, when Jamie says, "the credibility of the panel is completely undermined by its decision to include a book like Child 44," that's clearly not a dig at Tom Rob Smith's book.

If he was upset about The Spare Room not being included, he could have said that, but he singles out Child 44 as being unworthy of inclusion.

[Sarah]

John - not so. Read the Bookseller piece I linked to and Byng's "clarification" of his Booker Prize forum comments. He's not hiding his agenda, which is that he wished THE SPARE ROOM, which he published and championed, had not been displaced by CHILD 44, which he turned down when it was on submission*, but there's definitely the whiff of sour grapes in action.

*Not necessarily germane to the discussion, but Canongate would not have been an appropriate publisher for CHILD 44 precisely because the book is more commercial.

[Nick Stone]

Another year, another gripe about The Booker.

I usually never pay attention to The Booker Prize. It’s elitist, out of touch and bordering on irrelevance. It doesn’t reflect popular reading tastes. It reflects highbrow critics’s tastes in books. Nothing wrong with that, of course, but how many of you on Shots can a). name more than one Booker winner, b). honestly claim to have read more than one Booker winner and c). say that you enjoyed b).?

Be honest now, this isn’t an intellectual pissing contest ….. I’ve read exactly one. Midnight’s Children by Freddie Fatwa. Not even his best book.

Should Child 44 win, it will actually mean that the judges will have picked a book that has been both a critical and commercial hit – in other words, a book a lot of people have actually read; in other words a relevant book.

Byng shot himself in both feet by saying that one of his books should have been nominated instead. Sore losers love their sour grapes.

[jainey]

Hey guys! I’m pretty new to the mystery/thriller genre. I’m loving all the suggestions and recommendations I’m getting from this website. I don’t want to join in the fight though.

While I’m commenting, I’d just like to throw out a recommendation of my own for mystery lovers to add to their lists. I'm currently finishing up a fast-paced, suspense-filled historical thriller called "The Hidden Man: A Novel of Suspense" by Anthony Flacco. It takes readers back to 1915 San Francisco reborn after the Great Earthquake and Fire. Particularly, I love the interesting, flawed characters that make the book shine like a jewel. James Duncan is a famed mesmerist at the pinnacle of his career in the upcoming World's Fair, and he must work together with equally fascinating Detective Blackburn and Blackburn’s young protégé Shane Nightingale when a fanatic stalker sets out to destroy him. It’s interesting because they must solve a murder that hasn’t even happened yet. My favorite character is Vignette Nightingale though, who reminds me of a female version of Huckleberry Finn; she's a character you don't see often in mystery books these days. If you like an edgy, compelling story and complex characters, this is a book for you. You can check out the reviews and book trailer on his website: AnthonyFlacco.com. If any author should get an award, it’s this guy. Give it a try!