Why We're Happy That Our Finalists Are Finalists For Other Book Awards, Too

On Feb. 21, I learned (via Twitter) that the three finalists for The Story Prize this year are also finalists for two other book awards. Don DeLillo's The Angel Esmeralda and Steven Millhauser's We Others are among the five finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. And Edith Pearlman's Binocular Vision is one of five finalists for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It's also up for the National Book Critics Circle Award (as announced earlier) and was a finalist for the National Book Awards in November.

One reason we established The Story Prize partly was that we believed the major U.S. book awards for fiction hadn't often enough recognized short story collections—and that the form deserved its own award. Rarely does a story collection win these prizes. PEN/Faulkner has the best track record in this regard, having given its fiction prize to two story collections in the past two years: Sherman Alexie's War Dances in 2010 and The Collected Stories of Deborah Eisenberg in 2011, as well as three others in the past 20 years—for a total of five winners.

If you don't count Jennifer Egan's A Visit from the Goon Squad, which the publisher maintained was a novel, The Pulitzer Prize last went to a story collection in 2009—Elizabeth Strout's Olive Kitteridge. Before that, it most recently went to a story collection in 2000, when Jhumpa Lahiri won for Interpreter of Maladies. But those are the only two books of short fiction that have won in the past 20 years—even 30 years. The last short fiction winner before 2000 was The Stories of John Cheever in 1979.

A short story collection hasn't won the National Book Awards since Andrea Barrett's Ship Fever in 1996, and the last story collection to win before that was Ellen Gilchrist's Victory Over Japan in 1984. However, readers did choose The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor as the best book in the NBA's first 60 years in 2010. And more short story collections seem to have been among the finalists in recent years.

Excluding Egan's book last year, the last story collection to win the National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction was in 1998--Alice Munro's The Love of a Good Woman. Gina Beirault's Women in Their Beds, a 1996 winner (and also a PEN/Faulkner winner), is the only other story collection to win the NBCC award for fiction in the last 20 years. In my opinion, short story collections are harder for critics to write about, which is one reason I think this award is a tough one for short fiction entries to crack.

In any event, we're happy that all three of this year's finalists for The Story Prize have a shot at winning other awards, too, because we believe in these three books and wish them—and short story collections in general—as much favorable attention as possible. Good luck all.

(You can see DeLillo. Millhauser, and Pearlman read and discuss their work at The Story Prize event at The New School on March 21.)

A Visit from the Goon Squad: Is It Candy or Is it Gum?

First things first: Congratulations to Jennifer Egan on winning the Pulitzer Prize for her story collection, A Visit from the Goon Squad. Yes, you heard it right: I'm calling Goon Squad a story collection. We didn't get it as an entry for The Story Prize*, and I didn't push to get it (nor The Imperfectionists by Tom Rachman—likewise a story collection), but I recently read Egan's book for my book group, and the thirteen chapters are definitely stories. Do they work together to create a whole greater than the sum of their parts? Yes, but so do a lot of story collections. 

Novel or story collection—which is it? This brings to mind the great philosophical conundrum of my childhood: Are Razzles candy or gum? As the slogan says: "First it's candy, then it's gum." The answer for Goon Squad is similar. It falls into both camps: First it's a story collection, then it's a novel. As you read the stories, the connections among them strengthen and create a satisfying whole. In fact, it's a lot more successful at being two different things than Razzles ever was.

Here's the thing: Any good story collection will have commonalities that make the book a single, cohesive work. Nonfiction and fiction, stories and novels, poems and stories exist along a continuum. A book, like a person, can be more than one thing, and even more than two things. For instance, a collection of prose poems could also work as a story collection and as a novel and have aspects of a memoir. A nonfiction book can also verge into fiction (I'm looking at you Greg Mortenson). The same goes for genre—a book can crossover among different ones. The stories in Goon Squad have elements of science fiction/alternative reality—as did this year's Story Prize winner, Anthony Doerr's Memory Wall.**

The point is this: Labels are for marketing. Books are for readers, and labels shouldn't place limits on a book's reach. A Visit from the Goon Squad was one of the best novels published in 2010. It was also one of the best story collections, among many good ones we read in 2010.

* We, of course, remain very enthusiastic about the three books we did choose as finalists for The Story Prize (Memory Wall by Anthony Doerr (which won), Gold Boy, Emerald Girl by Yiyun Li, and Death Is Not an Option by Suzanne Rivecca). I can't say we would necessarily have picked A Visit from the Goon Squad as a finalist (Olive Kitteridge came very close, but we didn't choose that, either). Still, I wish we'd had a chance to consider it.

** The same could be said of the work of Chris Adrian, Kevin Brockmeier, George Saunders, and many others who usually fall into the literary camp. Maureen McHugh's Mothers & Other Monsters, a Story Prize finalist in 2006, seemed to carry the alternative history label, but it's also a very literary collection that deserves more attention (as do books by other authors that Small Beer Press publishes, such as Kelly Link and Karen Joy Fowler).

Book Award Roundup: PEN/Malamud, O'Connor, and Pulitzer

The story never sleeps. And a lot has been going on as awards season winds downs. Among the highlights:

• The PEN/Malamud Award announced its 2010 winners on Apr. 28: Edward P. Jones and Nam Le. Both have had story collections long-listed for The Story Prize in recent years.

• The recently renamed* Cork City - Frank O'Connor Short Story Award announced its 57 book long list on Apr. 29. Short story collections published between September 2009 and August 2010 were eligible. The award will announce six finalists in July and its winner at a short story festival in Cork in September. The prize is still €35,000. With the price of the euro sliding, that could amount to less in dollars this year.

• The Pulitzer Prize announced its fiction winner, the novel Tinkers by Paul Harding, on Apr. 12. Of note, two short story collections were the other finalists. One was Love in Infant Monkeys by Lydia Millet. The other was Story Prize winner In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin. The latter was a strange choice, considering that the award is: "For distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life." In Other Rooms is a great book, but it hardly fits the bill. All but one of the stories are set in Pakistan. And the one that isn't takes place in Paris, albeit with an American protagonist. Also of note: two of the three finalists were published by independents, Bellevue Literary Press and Soft Skull Press.

There's even more going on than that, as the momentum for the story continues. Look for more posts on books we're reading for The Story Prize and about the grassroots Short Story Month, otherwise known as May.




*It was the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award, but it appears that the Cork City Council is now sponsoring the prize. State sponsorship of book awards, not to mention corporate sponsorship, is unheard of in the U.S. but can help sustain book awards and augment prize money.

A Short Story Collection (Olive Kitteridge) Wins The Pulitzer Prize

Good news: Elizabeth Strout has won the Pulitzer prize for fiction for her short story collection Olive Kitteridge. It's the first collection to win the Pulitzer since 2000, when Jhumpa Lahiri won for Interpreter of Maladies. Olive Kitteridge, was a close contender for The Story Prize and one of our notable books of 2008. I hope this award puts it into a lot more people's hands.

I don't keep up with the chatter, but I doubt many people expected Olive Kitteridge to win the Pulitzer, even though it made a lot of year-end best books lists and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle awards. Book awards are highly subjective, and the choices largely depend on who's doing the choosing. This year's jurors were writer R.H.W. Dillard, journalist Susan Larson, and librarian Nancy Pearl (who was a judge for The Story Prize a few years ago). The other two finalists were Plague of Doves by Louise Erdrich and All Souls by Christine Schutt. In any event, 2008 had several exceptional story collections, and I'm glad one of them has won a major book award (besides The Story Prize). Congratulations, Elizabeth--keep those stories coming.