National Book Critics Circle Announces Finalists January 23, 2010

by Barbara Hoffert | Jan-23-2010

On Saturday, January 23, 2010, the National Book Critics Circle announced the finalists for its book awards for the publishing year 2009 at Housing Works Bookstore Cafe in New York. The fiction finalists, announced by 2008 finalist Elizabeth Strout, included this year’s Man Booker Award winner, Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Holt), as well as Bonnie Jo Campbell’s 2009 National Book Award finalist, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press), and Jayne Anne Phillips NBA finalist Lark and Termite (Knopf). The autobiography finalists, announced by 2008 autobiography winner Ariel Sabar, included Lit (Harper) by Mary Karr, author of The Liar’s Club, a formative book in the memoir genre, and Kati Marton’s Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America (Simon & Schuster), in which the author used her reporter’s skills to uncover the story of her parents in Budapest during the Nazi and Communist eras. Biography, announced by 1999 finalist Jean Strouse, included works about writers John Cheever, Clarice Lispector, Flannery O'Connor, Ignazio Silone.

This year’s finalists in criticism, announced by 2008 finalist Vivian Gornick, included cultural criticism from Eula Biss (Notes from No Man's Land: American Essays, Graywolf Press) and Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (Norton). Poetry finalists, announced by 2008 finalist Brenda Shaughnessy, ranged from 93-year-old Eleanor Ross Taylor’s Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008 (Louisiana State University Press) to former poet laureate Louise Glück’s A Village Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux). The 2000 nonfiction winner Ted Conover announced the nonfiction finalists, which included hefty tomes like Wendy Doniger’s The Hindus: An Alternative History (Penguin Press) and William T. Vollmann’s 1300-plus page, Imperial (Viking, over a decade in the making.

In addition, this year’s Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award is Joyce Carol Oates, announced by Kwame Anthony Appiah, president of PEN American Center, the 2008 Sandrof award winner. Winner of the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing, announced by former Balakian winner Albert Mobilio, is Joan Acocela. For details on all the finalists, please see below.

Autobiography:
Diana Athill, Somewhere Towards the End (Norton)
Debra Gwartney, Live Through This: A Mother's Memoir of Runaway Daughters and Reclaimed Love (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)
Mary Karr, Lit (Harper)
Kati Marton, Enemies of the People: My Family's Journey to America (Simon & Schuster)
Edmund White, City Boy, Bloomsbury

Biography:
Blake Bailey, Cheever: A Life (Knopf)
Brad Gooch, Flannery: A Life of Flannery O'Connor (Little, Brown)
Benjamin Moser, Why This World: A Biography of Clarice Lispector (Oxford University Press)
Stanislao G. Pugliese, Bitter Spring: A Life of Ignazio Silone (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press)

Criticism:
Eula Biss, Notes From No Man's Land: American Essays (Graywolf Press)
Stephen Burt, Close Calls with Nonsense: Reading New Poetry (Graywolf Press)
Morris Dickstein, Dancing in the Dark: A Cultural History of the Great Depression (Norton)
David Hajdu, Heroes and Villains: Essays on Music, Movies, Comics, and Culture (Da Capo Press)
Greg Milner, Perfecting Sound Forever: An Aural History of Recorded Music (Faber)

Fiction:
Bonnie Jo Campbell, American Salvage (Wayne State University Press)
Marlon James, The Book of Night Women (Riverhead)
Michelle Huneven, Blame (Sarah Crichton Books/FSG)
Hilary Mantel, Wolf Hall (Holt)
Jayne Anne Phillips, Lark and Termite (Knopf)

Nonfiction:
Wendy Doniger, The Hindus: An Alternative History (Penguin Press)
Greg Grandin, Fordlandia: The Rise and Fall of Henry Ford's Forgotten Jungle City (Metropolitan Books)
Richard Holmes, The Age of Wonder: How the Romantic Generation Discovered the Beauty and Terror of Science (Pantheon)
Tracy Kidder, Strength in What Remain (Random House)
William T. Vollmann, Imperial (Viking)

Poetry:
Rae Armantrout, Versed (Wesleyan)
Louise Glück, A Village Life (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
D.A. Powell, Chronic (Graywolf Press)
Eleanor Ross Taylor, Captive Voices: New and Selected Poems, 1960–2008 (Louisiana State University Press)
Rachel Zucker, Museum of Accidents (Wave Books)

Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing
Joan Acocella

Finalists:
Michael Antman
William Deresiewicz
Donna Seaman
Wendy Smith

Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award
Joyce Carol Oates

The National Book Critics Circle, founded in 1974 at the Algonquin, is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization consisting of some 600 active book reviewers who are interested in honoring quality writing and communicating with one another about common concerns. It is managed by a 24-member all-volunteer board of directors. For more information, please contact National Book Critics Circle president Jane Ciabattari at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) or go to http://www.bookcritics.org.

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Wonderful choices, in and of themselves, and for Macalester College—alma mater of Mary Karr (Lit, in autobiography), current home of Marlon James (The Book of Night Women, fiction), and until recently home of Stephen Burt (Close Calls With Nonsense, criticism).

– David Chioni Moore (01/24 at 24-Jan 23:54 -05:00)

Good to know, David!

– Jane Ciabattari (01/25 at 25-Jan 10:29 -05:00)

Lordy, the fiction is a woman-only event. Glad to see so many getting their due, although Colm Toibin’s “Brooklyn” shouda been a contender. And not to be too parochial, but I’m glad to see an Oregonian, Debra Gwartney, in autobiography… Thanks for all your work from this board alum

– Ellen Heltzel (01/25 at 25-Jan 14:13 -05:00)

Thanks, Ellen. Fiction finalists, four women, one guy (Marlon James). The finalists will read at The New School on Wednesday, March 10…!

– Jane Ciabattari (01/25 at 25-Jan 14:17 -05:00)

Yes, a lovely list. I’d like to second the notion that it would be nicely improved by the addition of Colm Toibin’s ‘Brooklyn.’ And, for that matter, Vestal McIntyre’s ‘Lake Overturn,’ a dazzling debt this year. Congratulations, all.

– ChiChi Fargo (01/25 at 25-Jan 22:05 -05:00)

So many wonderful books, only five spots! Thanks for your thoughts.

– Jane Ciabattari (01/26 at 26-Jan 12:01 -05:00)

Joyce Carol Oates absolutely deserves her award. I’m so pleased with that selection!

– Lisa Guidarini (01/26 at 26-Jan 13:44 -05:00)

joyce carol oates is truly is an artist who is prolific.

– bee (01/29 at 29-Jan 05:43 -05:00)

We are delighted to see Bitter Spring: a life of Ignazio Silone by Stan Pugliese on your list. It is an excellent work by a very fine writer and historian.

– Canio's Books (02/01 at 1-Feb 09:48 -05:00)

So glad to see that there is a biography of Ignazio Silone. Have never forgotten how he stood out in The God That Failed. Will be ordering it from my Indie bookstore, Brazos Books, here in Houston, the only place I buy any books at all. Thanks for all the overwhelming info about what I still have to read. (Am into Tim O’Brien, The Things They Carried, Robert Graves Goodbye To All That, and Pat Barker’s Life Class, and Katha Pollitt’s poems in Body, Mind and Spirit. Am warmed by the feeling that there is truly a community out there of writers and readers. Thanks again.

– Kyla Bynum (02/16 at 16-Feb 23:23 -05:00)

Before making an award decision on Wendy Doniger’s book, please read this link:

http://www.ptinews.com/news/544752_Hindus-urge-Penguin-USA-to-withdraw-book-on-them

– Raghu Rao (03/04 at 4-Mar 11:28 -05:00)

Sounds like many well-deserved winners. I’m particularly fond of Diana Athill’s 3 volumes of memoir and was pleased to see her among the winners. And she would have been pleased by Hilary Mantel’s also being on the list. However, I’ve been puzzled by today’s (3/14/10) article by Jeffrey Burke of Bloomberg: He quotes from Athill’s email comment in response to the award, yet I understand her to have died last year! Can anyone enlighten me?

– gail weininger (03/14 at 14-Mar 23:03 -05:00)

Diana Athill is alive and well and sent the email to her editor upon hearing she was one of the 30 authors we honored as finalists.

– Jane Ciabattari (03/15 at 15-Mar 14:51 -05:00)

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"National Book Critics Circle Announces Finalists January 23, 2010" was posted January 23, 2010 and written by Barbara Hoffert.

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