A curious statement was made by this year’s Pulitzer Prize committee as, for the first time since A River Runs Through It failed to win in 1977, no award was given in the fiction category. Instead, Denis Johnson’s Train Dreams, Karen Russell’s Swamplandia!, and David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King will get to split the “tie” on their records. In the history of the Prize, there have only been nine other years without a fiction winner.
Meanwhile in the General Nonfiction category, Stephen Greenblatt‘s The Swerve: How the World Became Modern took home the top prize.
Here are this year’s Pulitzer winners and finalists with excerpts where available:
Fiction:
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson – (excerpt)
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell (excerpt, The Millions interview)
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace (excerpt, previously unpublished scene)
General Nonfiction:
Winner: The Swerve: How the World Became Modern by Stephen Greenblatt (excerpt)
One Hundred Names For Love: A Stroke, a Marriage, and the Language of Healing by Diane Ackerman (excerpt)
Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men by Mara Hvistendahl (excerpt)
History:
Winner: Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable (excerpt, The Millions review)
Empires, Nations & Families: A History of the North American West, 1800-1860 by Anne F. Hyde (excerpt – PDF)
The Eleventh Day: The Full Story of 9/11 and Osama Bin Laden by Anthony Summers and Robbyn Swan (excerpt)
Railroaded: The Transcontinentals and the Making of Modern America by Richard White (excerpt)
Biography:
Winner: George F. Kennan: An American Life by John Lewis Gaddis (excerpt)
Love and Capital: Karl and Jenny Marx and the Birth of a Revolution by Mary Gabriel (excerpt)
Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention by Manning Marable (excerpt, The Millions review)
Winners and finalists in other categories are available at the Pulitzer Web site.
I read Sisters Brothers and was badly disappointed. I found it pointless. Thin characters, the story did not resolve itself, the characters were neither likable nor detestable and therefore boring. A long while since I’ve been so let down by a book.
I’ve read three of the 6 – The Sense of an Ending Jamrach’s Menagerie ,
and The Sisters Brothers. I enjoyed all three but thought Carol Birch’s book was head and shoulders above the others in ambition and achievement.
I’ve read them all, except Half Blood Blues, which I’m currently reading. I’m finding it hard to pick a winner; I was so sure Hollinghurst had it in the bag that it’s hard to pick an alternative winner. Julian Barnes is the likely winner, but I think the book I enjoyed the most was The Sisters Brothers.
I read Pigeon English and found it weak and inauthentic. I also read The Sisters Brothers which was a riot – a Coen brothers movie in book form, if that makes sense. Highly recommended.
Jamrach’s Menagerie is up next.