Joe Meno: What The Story Prize Judges Had to Say

Joe Meno was a revelation to much of the audience at The Story Prize event on March 4. His book, of course, wasn't nearly as well known as those of the other two finalists, Jhumpa Lahiri and Tobias Wolff, but by the end of the evening, the signed copies of Demons in the Spring had sold out. In our onstage conversation, he explained the theme of disaster that runs through the stories in the collection and the significance of the title. Here’s what the judges had to say:

“Playful and moving, inventive and sharp—each story in Joe Meno’s Demons in the Spring takes our understanding of the world and gives it a twist. Wives turn into clouds, tiny elephants sniff out missing children, and miniature cities glow underneath our skin. There are also factual elements—bits about Iceland (a travel guide that includes climate and population), Stockholm Syndrome (a retelling of the events that coined the phrase), and the Unabomber (including his actual mailing address in jail)—that serve as platforms to investigate deeper issues of the soul.

“In lesser hands, these unconventional forms and outlandish leaps of imagination would feel like empty concepts, but Meno fills each of these stories to the brim with heart. There is true emotion hiding behind every trick mirror, and it comes across in spades. As I finished each story, I found myself looking forward to the next, wondering what Meno would surprise me with. But what sets this collection apart, and moved me the most, was that his characters consistently choose hope over despair. Meno brings great skill to every line, and proves, as in his story, ‘The Architecture of the Moon,’ that human connection can be the small light used to illuminate a great darkness.”

photo © Eric Richards

Jhumpa Lahiri: What The Story Prize Judges Had to Say

That's Jhumpa Lahiri at the intermission to The Story Prize event on March 4. To her left and mostly obscured is fellow finalist Tobias Wolff. She was brilliant in conversation and provided the audience with interesting insights into her work during our onstage conversation. Here's what one of the judges had to say about Lahiri's exceptional short story collection Unaccustomed Earth:

“In what is only her second book of stories, Jhumpa Lahiri masterfully tells tales of people in today’s globalized, extended world. She depicts their efforts to discern the links of family, of love, both in the moment and over time and place. There is an assurance in these narratives, paced almost leisurely, yet carrying in many places those quickened moments when life or the perception of life is altered forever. The narrative perspectives themselves vary—third-person, first-, second- —in ways that make this feel like a volume of many voices. The interplay of characters who carry life with caution with those who act out of impulse or recklessness, and where it leads everyone, including the reader, is extraordinary.”

Tobias Wolff: What The Story Prize Judges Had to Say

When the judges for The Story Prize make their choices, they also write citations for the book or books they liked best. We include these in congratulatory letters we present to each finalist, along with their checks. They are unattributed to protect the confidentiality of the judges' votes. We're going to share them here because we think they offer insightful and interesting readings of the books. Here's one for Tobias Wolff's Our Story Begins, this year's winner of The Story Prize:

“Our Story Begins will be ranked with the best collections of contemporary American (and Canadian) short stories published in recent—maybe even all—decades. Such writers as John Cheever, John Updike, Lorrie Moore, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, John Updike, Eudora Welty, William Maxwell, etc. will be proud to welcome him to their cohort. Well—he's really with them already, but this volume gives him eternal tenure.

“The previously uncollected pieces by Wolff in this new collection show an increasingly severe insistence on the most telling and specific detail as the author creates entire worlds, entire life stories, out of eloquent molecules of narrative. The emotional impact of these lapidary stories is specific and powerful: a teacher facing abduction from the angry Muslim parent of one of her students turns the tables on her captor without much in the way of a sense of victory; a father takes his ‘difficult’ son off to a boarding school and gets lost on the way to and from the place, filling himself with greater dread than he would have imagined possible. The strength of the content of these pieces, whose characters often end up in a kind of cosmic lostness tempered, occasionally, by kindness, should not be taken for granted.

“But it is Wolff's language, which has grown even more elemental and honest and unadorned than it was at the start of his career, that really impressed me here. It sounds almost physically palpable. ‘The factories were derelict’—what a gorgeous clause that is. ‘Neat piles of tall corn flicked past.’ Strict monosyllables. ‘She had no friends except for an equally friendless cousin.’ An entire canvas in a brushstroke. Many of the pieces in the book as a whole concentrate on plans and hopes derailed, but the stories themselves always stay on track, giving order to our lives’ disorder.”

photo credit © Eric Richards

Scenes from The Story Prize: Joe Meno, Tobias Wolff, and Jhumpa Lahiri

photo © Eric Richards

In the days ahead, we'll be posting lots of pictures from The Story Prize event on our Web site. Here's one of this year's winner, Tobias Wolff, with fellow finalists Joe Meno and Jhumpa Lahiri at the post-event reception. Behind Lahiri, you can see her editor, Robin Desser.* The three finalists had never met before, but there was a nice feeling of fellowship among them, which you can clearly see in the photo. All three were incredibly nice, gracious, easy to talk to, smart, and truly interesting.

* Knopf's Desser also edits Edwidge Danticat and Nam Le, among others.

Our Story Begins Has a Happy Ending: Tobias Wolff Wins The Story Prize

Tobias Wolff has won The Story Prize for his extraordinary collection of previous and new work, Our Story Begins. Founder Julie Lindsey presented him with the $20,000 award and an engraved silver bowl at an event that took place at The New School in New York City on Wednesday night, March 4. The other finalists, Jhumpa Lahiri for Unaccustomed Earth and Joe Meno for Demons in the Spring, each received $5,000. All three authors read from and discussed their work onstage.

More details will follow, including the judges' citations for all three books. A Web cast will follow on FORA.tv in a few weeks. We'll post photos from both the event and reception on The Story Prize Web site in the days ahead and will also link to notable press coverage. We're grateful to all three writers for their participation and, most of all, for their wonderful books.

It was a pleasure talking to Jhumpa, Joe, and Tobias. And all three read beautifully.