No easy picks for Giller Prize,
Bock, Coady, Davidson, Moore, Vyleta make list that could have had ‘50 books’
This year marks the fourth time that Margaret Atwood has served on the jury for the Scotiabank Giller Prize, Canada’s preeminent literary award. Now, after having read 147 books by authors from across the country, she said this is the strongest crop of fiction she’s encountered as a juror.
“We could have made a list of 50 books,” she said moments after the five finalists were revealed. “So whoever wasn’t on it should not feel that they’re in any way being disparaged. There’s just a lot of extremely strong writing, and that makes it very hard to choose lists like this.”
The finalists for the $50,000 prize, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year, were announced at the Soho House in Toronto on Tuesday morning.
Toronto’s Dennis Bock is nominated for his third novel, Going Home Again, which the jury called “a true testament to the enduring passions of being alive.”
Lynn Coady, who lives in Edmonton, is nominated for her short story collection Hellgoing, which the jury said “offers a world view full of mournful humour, ready indignation and vertiginous possibility.”
Craig Davidson of Toronto was nominated for his second novel, Cataract City; the jury described it as an “energetic, gritty, violent, often comic but sorrowful novel.”
St. John’s’ Lisa Moore is nominated for her third novel, Caught, which the jury said “envelops the reader in an atmosphere of droll, ominous, daylight noir, populated with charming, morally-compromised dreamers and rumpled policemen.”
Finally, Dan Vyleta is nominated for his third novel, The Crooked Maid, which the jury called a “deft, unsparing exploration of the rancour, desperation, and moral distortions left in the wake of war.”
Coady and Moore have previously been shortlisted, and are both finalists for this year’s Rogers Writers’ Trust Fiction Prize, as well.
“You want to make sure you’ve got the absolute most-perfect list,” said Esi Edugyan, who won the prize in 2011 and is serving on this year’s jury with Atwood and the American novelist and essayist Jonathan Lethem. “But if you change one member of the jury you’re going to have just a completely, radically different list. So it’s not an exact science.”
One author who was notably absent was David Gilmour, whose new novel Extraordinary was one of 13 on the longlist. Gilmour, who teaches at the University of Toronto, found himself in hot water after his comments about female writers appeared in the online magazine Hazlitt. Atwood said the shortlist was decided upon before his comments were publicized.
‘It was easiest to make it 13 books. It was quite a lot harder to make it five. And to find the winner … we’re going to be really working.’
JONATHAN LETHEM
Member of Giller Prize jury
“It was not a factor,” she said. “And I have to say with this jury it would not have been a factor anyway, because we were looking only at books.”
The winner will be announced at a gala ceremony in Toronto on Nov. 5.
“I think our work is going to be challenging from here on out,” Lethem said. “We were spoiled for choice. It was easiest to make it 13 books. It was quite a lot harder to make it five. And to find the winner, I think we all agree — we were saying this at breakfast — we’re going to be really working.”