The shortlist for the 2014 Man Booker Prize for
Fiction was announced today, and the nominees include two Americans for
the first time in the prize’s history. New York-based author Joshua Ferris, for his book “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour,” and California-based author Karen Joy Fowler, for her novel “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves,” have both made the list. They’re joined by U.K. authors Howard Jacobson, Neel Mukherjee, and Ali Smith, as well as Australian author Richard Flanagan.This year marks the first time the prize has been open to Americans. In previous years, only authors from the U.K. and the Commonwealth, the Republic of Ireland and Zimbabwe were considered. Now, any book written in English and published in the U.K. has a shot at the £50,000 prize (about $85,000).
Mr. Ferris was just waking up in his Manhattan apartment when he heard the news. “It sort of snapped me to attention,” he said. “It’s an award that’s kind of exotic over here,” he said. “It has this extra sheen to it, in a way. To be on the shortlist was just something that never seemed possible—it actually wasn’t something that was possible.”
The winner will be announced Oct. 14 at London’s Guildhall and televised by BBC. Listed below are the opening lines from the six nominees:
- Little, Brown and Co.
“The mouth is a weird place.” –From “To Rise Again at a Decent Hour” by Joshua Ferris.
- Penguin Group
“Those who know me now will be surprised to learn that I was a great talker as a child.”
–From “We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves” by Karen Joy Fowler
...MOREAlthough I'm not a great fan of "Call me Ishmael" it seems to be popular and made the list in our "13 Great First Lines" post.
Izabella Kaminska's "I am on the train from Geneva to Zurich, bound for the annual forecasting dinner of the Swiss Chartered Financial Analyst society..." led off one of her pieces for the Financial Times and then there's the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest.
Some of the 2014 winners:
Winner: Crime
Hard-boiled private dick Harrison Bogart couldn’t tell if it was the third big glass of cheap whiskey he’d just finished, or the way the rain-moistened blouse clung so tightly to the perfect figure of the dame who just appeared panting in his office doorway, but he was certain of one thing … he had the hottest mother-in-law in the world. — Carl Turney, Bayswater, Victoria, Australia
Runner-Up:
- As the foeman’s axe descended, Ragnar Thorvaldsson thought – quickly, but with uncannily prescient anachronism – that his paltry contribution to this raid would not be recorded in the great sagas, or even a minor tale, but at best he might be remembered centuries hence only as “third oarsman” in the Boys’ Own Book of Viking Adventure Stories. — Paul Dawson, Vancouver, BC, Canada
Dishonorable Mention
His ex-wife’s personality was like chocolate – not the smoky, tangy, exquisitely rich and full-bodied type, but the over-sweet, tooth-cracking, factory-processed, made-with-vegetable-oil kind that leaves one with diabetes and an aneurysm the size of a grape. — Shalom Chung, Hong Kong
Dishonorable Mention
- The Swan Queen spread her wings with all the quick grace of a businessman hailing a taxi in NYC and leapt high into the air like said businessman swearing and jumping back from the curb as the taxi he was hailing speeds past and splatters him with sludgy city puddle water, but in a more graceful way than the second bit. — Thor F. Carden, Madison, TN
