A Word About Awards

JAMES by Percival Everett   Awards: BookTube Winner 2025, Carnegie Winner 2025, Kirkus Winner 2024, National Book Winner 2024, Pulitzer Winner 2025   Nominations: Aspen Words Finalist 2025, Booker Finalist 2024, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2025, Dublin Finalist 2025, Goodreads Finalist 2024, LA Times Finalist 2024, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2024, NY Times Finalist 2024, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2025, PEN/Jean Stein Longlist 2025   Date Read: March 19, 2025   From Kirkus Reviews: “ Mark Twain's  Adventures of Huckleberry Finn  as told from the perspective of a more resourceful and contemplative Jim than the one you remember. This isn’t the first novel to reimagine Twain’s 1885 masterpiece, but the audacious and prolific Everett dives into the very heart of Twain’s epochal odyssey, shifting the central viewpoint from that of the unschooled, often credulous, but basically good-hearted Huck to the more enigmatic and heroic Jim, the Black slave with ...

CHARMING BILLY by Alice McDermott   Award: National Book Winner 1998   Nominations: Dublin Finalist 2000, Women’s Prize Longlist 2000   Date Read: August 7, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “ McDermott (At Weddings and Wakes, 1992, etc.) extends her view of Irish-American life with this gentle portrait of an alcoholic freshly dead from drink, and of the family he leaves behind to reveal and remember. Everyone at the wake agreed that Billy Lynch was a fine man--when sober. But they also knew something of his pain, born from the long-ago death of his fiancée just before she was to come back to Brooklyn after a trip to Ireland. Only his cousin and best friend Dennis, though, knew the whole story: Eva didn't die, but she did marry her Irish love--a fact he concealed from Billy for 30 years, not knowing that Billy would mourn what might have been for the rest of his life, even after he met and married the gentle, love-struck Maeve. Then, in Ireland in 1975, to take The Pledge ...

BIRDY by William Wharton   Award: National Book Winner 1980   Nomination: Pulitzer Finalist 1980   Date Read: July 27, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “ Some books—some of the best—defy description. But we'll try. On one level, this is a novel about a boy named Birdy, who with his friend Al Ambrogio grows up in a Philadelphia suburb before World War II, and is fascinated by pigeons. High school deflects Al's attention toward girls, but Birdy moves from pigeons to canaries, eventually raising an entire aviary. Level number two: Birdy's fascination with canaries—their habits, songs, and, above all, their flight—completely captures his imagination: "I know I want to fly at least as much as any canary. I don't have to fly anything as well as a canary; gliding down from high places with arm control might be enough." Level number three: this is a book about a boy who becomes a bird in every way but physically. To fly like, act like, be like a bird becomes less and less ...

THE RABBIT HUTCH by Tess Gunty   Awards: National Book Winner 2022   Nominations: Inside Literary Prize Finalist 2024, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2022   Date Read: January 10, 2024   From Kirkus Reviews: “ An ensemble of oddballs occupies a dilapidated building in a crumbling Midwest city.   An 18-year-old girl is having an out-of-body experience; a sleep-deprived young mother is terrified of her newborn’s eyes; someone has sabotaged a meeting of developers with fake blood and voodoo dolls; a lonely woman makes a living deleting comments from an obituary website; a man with a mental health blog covers himself in glow stick liquid and terrorizes people in their homes. In this darkly funny, surprising, and mesmerizing novel, there are perhaps too many overlapping plots to summarize concisely, most centering around an affordable housing complex called La Lapinière, or the Rabbit Hutch, located in the fictional Vacca Vale, Indiana. The novel has a playfu...

BLACKOUTS by Justin Torres   Award: National Book Winner 2023 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 2025, Inside Literary Prize Finalist 2025, Los Angeles Times Finalist 2023, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2023, PEN/Jean Stein Longlist 2024   Date Read: November 25, 2023   The unnamed narrator of Blackouts has come to The Palace to be with a dear friend, Juan, as he dies. Fleeing a flooded kitchen, Juan provides No Name a place to stay in exchange for continuing his life’s work: completing a 1941 study called  Sex Variants: A Study in Homosexual Patterns.   Between the two’s memories and education, they explore queer history and how this history has affected their own lives. Interspersed throughout the novel is redacted text from the study that forms more of a personal history between the lines or what Juan calls “…little poems of illumination.” The text was originally written by Jan Gay as an anthropological study in homosexuality but Dr. George Henry co-opted h...

THE SHIPPING NEWS by Annie Proulx   Awards: National Book Winner 1993, Pulitzer Winner 1994   Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1996, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 1993   Date Read: October 28, 2020   Following tragedy, newly single Quoyle moves himself and his children to the Newfoundland coast, where their ancestral home remains derelict and empty. Quoyle is uncertain what awaits him there or if this is the right move but this small and tight-knit community immediately embraces them and they find what they perhaps need the most - community.   As with all small towns, Killick-Claw is chock full of bizarre and interesting characters. Working at the local newspaper writing the shipping news (hence, the title), Quoyle carves out a life for himself and his daughters that allows them to heal from the loss of Petal, Quoyle’s unrequited love and the daughter of Sunshine and Bunny.   Not only does his heart heal, but he meets a woman named Wavey who he is drawn...

SING, UNBURIED, SING by Jesmyn Ward Award: National Book Winner 2017 Nominations: Aspen Words Finalist 2018, Carnegie Finalist 2018, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2018, Dublin Longlist 2019, Kirkus Finalist 2017, LA Times Finalist 2017, National Book Critics Circle Finalist 2017, NY Times Finalist 2017, PEN/Faulkner Finalist 2018,  Women's Prize Finalist 2018 Date Read: May 29, 2020 This novel came up in a timely fashion as cities across America rise up in protest against the senseless killing of George Floyd. I am simultaneously in awe of how fragile life is and how disgustingly dispensable black life is. The video of this killing is nothing short of a snuff film by a smug, self-satisfied white man drunk on his own power. Sing, Unburied, Sing follows three main characters - Leonie, Jojo and Richie, each having their own voice throughout. Of course, Jojo captured my attention as a child working his way to becoming a man. Jojo has just turned 13 and is trying to hold hi...

GRAVITY'S RAINBOW by Thomas Pynchon Award: National Book Winner 1974 Nomination: NY Times Finalist 1973 Date Read: May 5, 2020 Gravity's Rainbow is nominally a novel set in post-WWII Europe, focusing on the design and launch of a rocket by the German military. I had read quite a bit about this novel and was prepared for it to be convoluted, lengthy and controversial. Indeed, it was all these things. My take is that Gravity's Rainbow is deeply confusing, overly long, tangential and somewhat perverse, yet there is no denying that Pynchon is possibly a mad genius. He takes on so many topics in this novel that I marvel at his knowledge of a host of topics that I never contemplated and, hopefully, never will again. Based on these plusses, I can see why it garnered the accolades that it did. The sheer amount of research involved, and the accuracy of the formulas, codes and sequences, is mind boggling. Pynchon won the National Book Award for Gravity's Rainbow, y...

THE ROUND HOUSE by Louise Erdrich Award: National Book Winner 2012 Nominations: Carnegie Finalist 2013, Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2013, Dublin Longlist 2014 Dates Read: December 23, 2012 & September 16, 2019 I don't know where to begin with this novel but to say that Erdrich takes my breath away. So much ground is covered here - loss of innocence, injustice, the depths of friendship, the roots of tradition - all come mixing together to form a beautiful symphony. Erdrich is truly a master and I am thrilled I have so much of her work ahead of me. The prejudice experienced by Native Americans in this book is staggered yet these characters let it wash over them sometimes with a shrug, often with a joke and yet forever with the understanding that the laws foisted upon them over the centuries are altogether unjust. The violence visited upon Joe's mom, Geraldine, is horrific and only slowly do we learn how violent and inhuman her experience was. With this assau...

SABBATH'S THEATER by Philip Roth Award: National Book Winner 1995 Nominations: Dublin Longlist 1997, NY Times Finalist 1995, Pulitzer Finalist 1996 Date Read: June 24, 2019 Here I go with another Philip Roth novel, having read American Pastoral and Nemesis. I already know this novel will be dense and uncomfortable but was unprepared for how perverse it would be as well. I’m somewhat shocked that this won the National Book Award.  Sabbath is a disturbed man, having lost his lover and been left by his wife. He is traveling through his memories, looking for something to hold him together. Having read some critiques, I understand Roth intended for this to be received as a comic novel, yet it missed the mark here. Rather than comedy, I was repulsed by Sabbath, his proclivities and his vanity. Some of the scenes here are difficult to swallow (yes, I’m fully aware of the artfulness of that word). One example: Readers are to believe that Sabbath picks up a hitchhiker (Chr...

S ALVAGE THE BONES by Jesmyn Ward Award: National Book Winner 2011 Nominations: Dayton Literary Peace Finalist 2012, Dublin Longlist 2013 Dates Read: September 9, 2012 & April 4, 2019 Ward is an exquisite storyteller, able to convey longing, suffering and desire in such a quiet way that it's almost deafening. It's no mistake we don't learn Esch's name, the narrator of the novel, until the third chapter. She is almost invisible, even to herself, never asking for what she really wants, never daring to hope for more. She lets life wash over her, never putting up obstacles. She is the water and life and everyone else's desires the wave. Only at the end of the novel does she scream out for acknowledgment and her heart's desire. Ward is fearless in bringing to light taboo topics that have been vilified by society - dog fighting, teen pregnancy, adultery, abortion. She provides a glimpse into a world that is all too familiar to some and foreign to others...

THE STORIES OF JOHN CHEEVER by John Cheever Award: National Book Winner 1981, National Book Critics Circle Winner 1978, Pulitzer Winner 1979 Nomination: National Book Finalist 1979, NY Times Finalist 1978 Date Read: October 20, 2007 I will admit to not being a huge fan of short story collections and tend to avoid them like the plague (more on why in a future post). I committed to reading this collection, however, because of my commitment to reading all the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction winners. Hence, this found it's way into my sweaty hands.  These 61 stories turned me into a believer of Cheever's ability to look deeply into the human psyche and the suffering, desire and yearning of the American suburbanite. He is a master storyteller and I am eagerly anticipating reading The Wapshot Chronicle, the 1958 National Book Award winner.

SLAUGHTERHOUSE FIVE by Kurt Vonnegut Award: National Book Winner 1970 Nomination: NY Times Finalist 1969 Date Read: March 9, 2002 Just thinking about Kurt Vonnegut makes me all tingly. He is singularly unique, with an unparalleled style. You simply cannot compare him to any other writer. Full stop. Slaughterhouse Five reads like science fiction that follows the protagonist Billy Pilgrim through WWII, traveling through time as he survives the Dresden bombing and becomes a prisoner of war. Vonnegut was also a prisoner of war and I am confident that through this writing, he was trying to come to terms with his own experience. The most notable aspect of this anti-war novel is the style in which it is written. From the beginning, the narrator warns that Pilgrim does not experience his life linearly, but discontinuously, traveling through his birth, death and everything in between in seemingly random order. Vonnegut even inserts himself in the novel in the form of his alter-ego, K...