National Book Award Nominees
The fiction longlist for the National Book Award was announced last month, while the shortlist came out October 4. Take a look at some of these nominated titles before the winner is chosen on November 15!
"Dark at the Crossing" by Elliot Ackerman (shortlisted)
Elliot Ackerman draws on his experiences as a decorated Marine and Syrian Civil War correspondent to weave this wartime tale of love, shifting allegiances and moral ambiguity. "Dark at the Crossing" is a probing examination not only of the ongoing conflict in Syria, but also of the fundamental questions at the heart of any armed struggle.
"The King is Always Above the People: Stories" by Daniel Alarcón
This story collection by award-winning Peruvian-American author Daniel Alarcón presents a wide variety of lifestyles and points of view, each memorable and distinct from the last. Alarcón writes convincingly and movingly about everything from family drama and the challenges of mental illness to Los Angeles gang culture and the immigrant experience, all the while giving voice to those who are too rarely allowed to speak for themselves.
"Miss Burma" by Charmaine Craig
"Miss Burma" positions a twisting generational saga against the tumultuous backdrop of the Burmese Civil War--a conflict which began in 1948 and is still unresolved today. Inspired by Charmaine Craig's own family history, this novel is both a compelling domestic tale and an informative look at a piece of world history most Americans know little, if anything, about.
"Manhattan Beach" by Jennifer Egan
Though historical fiction may seem like a strange change of direction for the author of "A Visit from the Goon Squad," Jennifer Egan proves herself more than capable with this noir-ish tale of Depression-era New York. Protagonist Anna Kerrigan knows her father's life is more complicated than it seems, but it is not until a chance encounter with a enigmatic man in a night club that she realizes just how much there is left for her to uncover.
"The Leavers" by Lisa Ko (shortlisted)
After his undocumented mother disappears without a trace, Deming Guo is adopted by a couple of well-to-do white professors who rename him Daniel Wilkinson and set to work trying to mold him into an "all-American" boy. But the past can't be erased so easily, and the Chinese-American Daniel soon finds himself confronted not only with the mystery of his mother's disappearance, but also with the struggle of finding and maintaining an identity in a family that doesn't fully understand him.
"Pachinko" by Min Jin Lee (shortlisted)
When young Sunja becomes pregnant out of wedlock, her family fears for their honor. Their hope is restored when a visiting Christian minister offers to marry her and take her from Korea to Japan, but this is only the beginning of Min Jin Lee's sprawling, multi-generational saga of life in exile. "Pachinko" is a deep, richly-detailed dive into the contradictions and questions that arise when a life is dug up and replanted in an unfamiliar place.
"Her Body and Other Parties: Stories" by Carmen Maria Machado (shortlisted)
This unsettling debut collection by Carmen Maria Machado utilizes elements of sci-fi, horror and fantasy to illustrate the experience of womanhood in a way straightforward realism couldn't. Though the world Machado imagines may seem unusual at first glance, readers will find the truths it reveals about the way we live our lives painfully familiar.
"A Kind of Freedom" by Margaret Wilkerson Sexton
Margaret Wilkerson Sexton's stirring debut novel spans 70 years in the lives of a New Orleans Creole family, from the Jim Crow days of World War II to the radical changes undergone by the city and its residents post-Katrina. "A Kind of Freedom" is a timely and textured work which explores many of the questions so central not only to our country's past, but to its present as well.
"Sing, Unburied, Sing" by Jesmyn Ward (shortlisted)
"Sing, Unburied, Sing," Jesmyn Ward's first novel since she took home the 2011 National Book Award for "Salvage the Bones," is a Southern tale with a gothic tinge in the tradition of William Faulkner, Toni Morrison, and Cormac McCarthy. Centered on a black Mississippi family beaten down by addiction, cancer, and violence, "Sing, Unburied, Sing" is a gritty and lyrical quest story with just a touch of the otherwordly to boot.
"Barren Island" by Carol Zoref
Set between the fall of the stock market in October 1929 and the start of World War II a decade later, on a New York island where dead animals were once made into fertilizer and glue, Carol Zoref's "Barren Island" is the story of an Eastern European immigrant family's turbulent life in Depression-era America. Though the setting and the challenges faced by the Eisenstein clan are grim, Zoref's poignant narration and firm grasp of a largely-forgotten part of American history make "Barren Island" an absorbing and highly rewarding reading experience.
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