Fiction Long List Announced for National Book Awards
The
long list of nominees for the 2014 National Book Award for fiction, due
to be released on Thursday, is an eclectic collection that includes two
debut volumes of short stories, a first novel from the lead singer and
songwriter for the indie folk rock band the Mountain Goats and a
dystopian novel, as well as works from literary heavyweights including
Jane Smiley, Marilynne Robinson and Richard Powers.
Rabih Alameddine, ‘An Unnecessary Woman,’ Grove Press Mr. Alameddine’s
fourth novel, “An Unnecessary Woman,” is narrated by Aaliya Saleh, a
reclusive 72-year-old woman in Beirut who translates works by Nabokov,
Rilke, Donne and others into Arabic and stashes them away in her
apartment without showing them to anyone.
Molly Antopol, ‘The UnAmericans,’ W.W. Norton & Company In her bleak and occasionally comic debut short-story collection,
Molly Antopol, who was selected as one of the National Book
Foundation’s “5 Under 35” writers in 2013, writes about a diverse cast
of characters, including a former dissident from Communist-era Prague
who worries that his daughter’s new play will paint a negative portrait
of him and a young Israeli journalist who dates a widower still grieving
for his wife.
John Darnielle, ‘Wolf in White Van,’ Farrar, Straus and Giroux In his debut novel,
Mr. Darnielle, best known as the lead musician and lyricist for the
band the Mountain Goats, writes about a lonely, disfigured man who
invented a popular role-playing fantasy game and runs the operation out
of his apartment.
Anthony Doerr, ‘All the Light We Cannot See,’ Scribner Mr. Doerr’s novel
unfolds during World War II in France. A blind girl and her father flee
Nazi-occupied Paris and move to a seaside town, taking with them a
precious jewel from a natural history museum. The father is arrested by
the Germans, and a Nazi treasure hunter tries to track down the jewel.
Phil Klay, ‘Redeployment,’ The Penguin Press Mr. Klay, a former Marine who fought in Iraq, captures the terror, boredom and occasional humor of war in his debut collection
of short stories, some set in the Anbar Province of Iraq, and others in
America as soldiers struggle to readjust to civilian life after being
in combat.
Emily St. John Mandel, ‘Station Eleven,’ Alfred A. Knopf “Station Eleven,” a quiet dystopian novel,
unfolds in North America after a deadly super flu has wiped out most of
humanity; a band of Shakespearean actors travels to scattered camps of
survivors to perform plays.
Elizabeth McCracken, ‘Thunderstruck & Other Stories,’ The Dial Press Ms. McCraken, whose
novel “The Giant’s House” was a National Book Award finalist, has
published her first collection of stories in 20 years. Among the nine
stories are a tale about a successful documentary filmmaker who has to
face a famous subject he manipulated and betrayed; one about a young
scholar who is mourning his wife; and another about a grocery store
manager who obsesses about a woman’s disappearance.
Richard Powers, ‘Orfeo,’ W.W. Norton & Company Mr. Powers’s novels often have a cerebral bent, and in “Orfeo,”
he threads together several of his favorite themes: music, patterns and
genetics. “Orfeo” follows Peter Els, a 70-year-old avant garde composer
who attempts to manipulate the genome of a common bacterium by splicing
in a musical pattern. Homeland Security picks up on his plans and
pursues him as a bioterrorist.
Marilynne Robinson, ‘Lila,’ Farrar, Straus and Giroux “Lila” — the final
book in Ms. Robinson’s trilogy of novels set in the fictional town of
Gilead, Iowa — centers on Lila, the troubled young woman who marries the
elderly Reverend Ames, the conflicted Calvinist minister and narrator
of “Gilead.”
Jane Smiley, ‘Some Luck,’ Alfred A. Knopf Jane Smiley’s new
novel, due out in October, takes place on an Iowa farm, where Rosanna
and Walter Langdon, who have five children, live through wars and social
and technological upheavals during the middle decades of the 20th
century.
I am looking at the list and thinking about which of these books would I like to read. How can a three or four line description peak my interest? Orfeo seems to be black enough to stimulate my interest; I don't particularly care for dystopian books; An Unnecessary Woman could be an interesting study in human nature. It seems to me that the greatest writers about human nature were the Russians. I just can't explain what makes me want to read a book.
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