Wednesday, November 17, 2004
Another Year of National Book Award Scandal
The controversy over the NBA Fiction picks has managed to keep on keeping on for at least a couple weeks now. Tonight's the big dinner.
The gist of the controversy is that allegedly Rick Moody led a 5-person panel to pick books that were all by unknown women from New York City. This is ridiculous criticism.
Plenty of other, more qualified bloggers and writers, are weighing in on this, so I won't go too much into the actual specifics.
But I will mention that the NBA is brilliant for causing the controversy. And if one looks at their past picks, it's obvious that they do enjoy stirring the literary hornet's nest for the sake of more ink.
Recent examples: Stephen King awarded a lifetime achievement medal last year, first-time novelist Julia Glass won for Three Junes in 2002, Cold Mountain (another first novel) won in 1997. Except for Susan Sontag in 2000, I'd say the last well-established author to win was Philip Roth for Sabbath's Theater in 1995. That's almost ten years of giving the award to rising stars or first-time novelists instead of giving it to established writers.
This year's slate of writers is hardly unusual for the National Book Award foundation.
And how bad do I feel for the this year's authors? This is a moment any writer would dream of and these poor, lucky authors have to spend all of their interviews defending themselves as deserving. The NYT Sunday Magazine interview with Christine Schutt asked her about the charge she hadn't paid her dues. Her response, "I am 56. I have taught literature at a girls' school in Manhattan, Nightingale-Bamford, for more than 20 years. My first collection of short stories was titled ''Nightwork'' because I wrote it at night while I was divorced and raising two sons. How else can I pay my dues?"
i.e. Screw you.
The best response I've seen is from Ron Hogan at Beatrice.com. He went out and interviewed all five. From his interview with Kate Walbert, "Any time would be a tremendous thrill, but I'm so happy to be on this particular list, the first list that's all women, and be able to stand back and watch the reaction. And it gives me four great writers to read." Good answer.
The other people I feel bad for are the other book award foundations. For yet another year, the NBA has trumped others to create a story that gets press. Quick, name last year's National Book Critics Circle fiction award winner.
I had to look it up, and the NBCC winner was also an NBA finalist last year. Now, the NBCC isn't announced until the end of January. So they have a little more time to create a big scandal.
I say, congratulations to Rick Moody and the National Book Foundation. Congratulations to the authors nominated. After tonight, one of your books will be the 2004 National Book Award winner and will always be listed this way.
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The gist of the controversy is that allegedly Rick Moody led a 5-person panel to pick books that were all by unknown women from New York City. This is ridiculous criticism.
Plenty of other, more qualified bloggers and writers, are weighing in on this, so I won't go too much into the actual specifics.
But I will mention that the NBA is brilliant for causing the controversy. And if one looks at their past picks, it's obvious that they do enjoy stirring the literary hornet's nest for the sake of more ink.
Recent examples: Stephen King awarded a lifetime achievement medal last year, first-time novelist Julia Glass won for Three Junes in 2002, Cold Mountain (another first novel) won in 1997. Except for Susan Sontag in 2000, I'd say the last well-established author to win was Philip Roth for Sabbath's Theater in 1995. That's almost ten years of giving the award to rising stars or first-time novelists instead of giving it to established writers.
This year's slate of writers is hardly unusual for the National Book Award foundation.
And how bad do I feel for the this year's authors? This is a moment any writer would dream of and these poor, lucky authors have to spend all of their interviews defending themselves as deserving. The NYT Sunday Magazine interview with Christine Schutt asked her about the charge she hadn't paid her dues. Her response, "I am 56. I have taught literature at a girls' school in Manhattan, Nightingale-Bamford, for more than 20 years. My first collection of short stories was titled ''Nightwork'' because I wrote it at night while I was divorced and raising two sons. How else can I pay my dues?"
i.e. Screw you.
The best response I've seen is from Ron Hogan at Beatrice.com. He went out and interviewed all five. From his interview with Kate Walbert, "Any time would be a tremendous thrill, but I'm so happy to be on this particular list, the first list that's all women, and be able to stand back and watch the reaction. And it gives me four great writers to read." Good answer.
The other people I feel bad for are the other book award foundations. For yet another year, the NBA has trumped others to create a story that gets press. Quick, name last year's National Book Critics Circle fiction award winner.
I had to look it up, and the NBCC winner was also an NBA finalist last year. Now, the NBCC isn't announced until the end of January. So they have a little more time to create a big scandal.
I say, congratulations to Rick Moody and the National Book Foundation. Congratulations to the authors nominated. After tonight, one of your books will be the 2004 National Book Award winner and will always be listed this way.
