As I'm sure you're all aware by now, the Orange Prize longlist was announced yesterday, and what a surprising list it was. I was desperate to get in on the blogging action immediately, but it was a busy work day for me, and then I had a pile of archives reading that I'd pledged to complete in the evening. So I'm a little late to the party but, believe me, equally as eager to get it started. Just in case you haven't seen it, here is the list of contenders again:
Rosie Alison - The Very Thought of You (Alma Books)
Eleanor Catton - The Rehearsal (Granta)
Clare Clark - Savage Lands (Harvill Secker)
Amanda Craig - Hearts and Minds (Little, Brown)
Roopa Farooki - The Way Things Look to Me (Pan Books)
Rebecca Gowers - The Twisted Heart (Canongate)
M.J. Hyland - This is How (Canongate)
Sadie Jones - Small Wars (Chatto & Windus)
Barbara Kingsolver - The Lacuna (Faber and Faber)
Laila Lalami - Secret Son (Viking)
Andrea Levy - The Long Song (Headline Review)
Attica Locke - Black Water Rising (Serpent’s Tail)
Maria McCann - The Wilding (Faber and Faber)
Hilary Mantel - Wolf Hall (Fourth Estate)
Nadifa Mohamed - Black Mamba Boy (HarperCollins)
Lorrie Moore - A Gate at the Stairs (Faber and Faber)
Monique Roffey - The White Woman on the Green Bicycle (Simon and Schuster)
Amy Sackville - The Still Point (Portobello Books)
Kathryn Stockett - The Help (Fig Tree)
Sarah Waters - The Little Stranger (Virago)
I'm planning on looking at each of the long-listers in more detail at the weekend, but my first thoughts are largely positive. I'm relieved to see both Hilary Mantel and Sarah Waters on there (whether you like them or not, the omission of such strong novels would reduce the credibility of the prize I think) but hugely disappointed at the omission of Sarah Hall's How to Paint a Dead Man. Given the statements in the press by Daisy Goodwin, the chairwoman of the judging panel, the omission is perhaps less surprising - it is an emotionally gruelling novel - but I still think it's a massive oversight. Sarah Hall writes so well, and so fruitfully, and How to Paint a Dead Man is absolutely one of the best novels by a woman released in the last year. I'm also a little disconcerted that there is no Evie Wyld; I haven't read After the Fire, a Still Small Voice but everything I've heard about it led me to anticipate its inclusion.
There are some very familiar names - Barbara Kingsolver, Lorrie Moore, M.J. Hyland - and some names that are entirely new to me, like Attica Locke, Rose Allison and Monique Roffey. Then there are the books that I've heard of but which have loitered at the back of my mind rather than taking a seat front and centre. Nearly everything else falls into this category in fact. Which is why I've read so few of them, and own so few of them.
I've read Wolf Hall of course (and will now have to restrain myself from re-reading it) and The Little Stranger, from when they were Booker short-listed. Sadly I didn't write about either of them for Alexandria, because they date from a distracted time last summer, but I will try to remedy that in the coming weeks. The only other books from the list I've touched are M.J. Hyland's This is How and Maria McCann's The Wilding. The latter was near the top of my TBR pile anyway - you know I can't resist a bit of literary historical fiction - and the former was, at one time, on my 'reading now' pile. In fact I read just over a third of it before I set it aside. It wasn't that the book was disappointing - not at all, it was extraordinary - but because it wasn't the right time for it. Daisy Goodwin says she got weary of grim, serious fiction, and tried to keep the long list up-beat. In which case This is How is the one that got away. I find it hard to imagine a more serious writer than M.J. Hyland, or a book grimmer than This is How. Anyway, I will be determinedly picking it back up again for a second attempt.
Like fellow Orange reader, Kirsty from Other Stories, I'm now gathering in the other long-listers: The Long Song, The Rehearsal, The Lacuna, A Gate at the Stairs, The Twisted Heart and The Still Point are all on their way to me as I type. The Wilding, which was ready and waiting, has now gained reading priority (and I will have to apologise to Nicola Barker profusely for it; Burley Cross Postbox Theft deserves better, I know). I've read 27 pages so far, and my impressions are mixed. At the moment it reminds me, quite disconcertingly, of a seventeenth century version of the BBC's adaptation of Lark Rise to Candleford but I'm sure I'm going to be disabused of the country idyll soon enough.
~~Victoria~~