NBA Fiction Finalists
Well, that feels strange. Just a couple of hours after I wrote a post mentioning Carolyn See’s review of Telex from Cuba, the book is one of the surprise National Book Award finalists for fiction (but every book on the list is regarded as a surprise of some sort).
At least initially, the fiction nominees seem to have raised the most eyebrows, so we’ll look at them first.
Who was overlooked? Toni Morrison (whose A Mercy comes out in a few weeks, but falls within the time period for the nominees), John Updike (The Widows of Eastwick) and Philip Roth (Indignation).
Ron Charles, in the Washington Post Book World‘s blog, “Short Stack”, said, “I’ve come to expect a strange, disappointing fiction list from the National Book Awards, and this year is no exception.” He feels that the omission of Roxana Robinson’s Cost is enough to make him question the entire endeavor. I agree; it is one of the books from this year that lingers in my mind long after reading it.
Telex from Cuba received many strong reviews, including a NYT BR cover review (unusual for a debut novel) and a People Pick.
Libraries own it, in modest quantities and are still working through reserves. It’s also available in audio from Tantor; half the libraries I checked own the audio version.
Telex from Cuba
Rachel Kushner
- Hardcover: $25.00
- Publisher: Scribner (July 1, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 141656103X
- ISBN-13: 978-1416561033
- Unabridged CD: 11 Audio CDs (Library Binder Pkg), $69.99
- Reader: Lloyd James
- Pub. Date: July, 2008
- ISBN-13: 978140038340
The other first novelist nominee is even more of a surprise. Salvatore Scibona’s The End received little attention from critics. It got a strong review in the Cleveland Plain Dealer (the book is set in Cleveland in the ’50’s and the author grew up there), which said its “atavistic ambition is off-putting and breathtaking.” It was starred by Publisher Weekly, who called it a “literary tour de force.”
- Hardcover: $24; 320 pages
- Publisher: Graywolf Press (May 13, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 1555974988
- ISBN-13: 978-1555974985
…not a restoration of the original version but a substantial revision and the kind of rendering done in slaughterhouses, a reduction of the trilogy’s 1,300-plus pages to a more easily consumed 900 or so.
- Hardcover: $40; 912 pages
- Publisher: Modern Library (April 8, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 0679640193
- ISBN-13: 978-0679640196
- Hardcover: $24.95; 304 pages
- Publisher: Riverhead (May 1, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 1594489882
- ISBN-13: 978-1594489884
- Hardcover: $25
- Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux; (September 2, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 0374299102
- ISBN-13: 978-0374299101
- Audio CD: Unabridged edition; $44.95
- Publisher: Macmillan Audio; (September 2, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 1427205108
- ISBN-13: 978-1427205100
- Audio CD: 10 CD; Unabridged; $94.95
- Maggi-Meg Reed
- Publisher: BBC America
- ISBN-13: 978-0-7927-5634-7
- Large Print, Hardcover: $34.95; 525 pages
- Publisher: Thorndike Press; Lrg edition (September 2, 2008)
- ISBN-10: 141040742X
- ISBN-13: 978-1410407429