{"id":59020,"date":"2025-10-03T09:43:12","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/59020\/"},"modified":"2025-10-03T09:43:12","modified_gmt":"2025-10-03T09:43:12","slug":"a-booker-shortlist-for-grown-ups","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/59020\/","title":{"rendered":"A Booker shortlist for grown-ups?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Booker Prize has been criticised in recent years for prioritising youth and novelty over maturity, said Johanna Thomas-Corr in The Times<\/a>. That charge cannot be levelled against the 2025 judging panel, chaired by Roddy Doyle: their shortlist, announced last week, comprises \u201csix books by seasoned novelists between the ages of 46 and 64\u201d. Only one, Kiran Desai \u2013 nominated for her third novel, \u201cThe Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny\u201d, a \u201cvast love story\u201d set in India and America \u2013 has written fewer than six books. It\u2019s also a shortlist that \u201ccelebrates good old-fashioned literary fiction\u201d. The judges seem to have deliberately avoided novels relying on \u201cgimmicky conceit or stylistic flashiness\u201d.<\/p>\n

Radically different approaches <\/p>\n

That\u2019s not quite true, said Anthony Cummins in The Observer<\/a>. While there are several \u201cinarguably well-made\u201d novels on the shortlist \u2013 notably Andrew Miller\u2019s \u201cThe Land in Winter\u201d, about two newlywed couples in the West Country during the big freeze of 1962, and Benjamin Markovits\u2019 \u201cThe Rest of Our Lives\u201d, about a \u201claw lecturer who makes good on a long-held vow to walk out on his wife as payback for infidelity\u201d \u2013 there are others that are more experimental. David Szalay\u2019s \u201cFlesh\u201d, comprising nine episodes in the \u201clife of a Hungarian ex-convict who settles in the UK\u201d, is an experiment in a kind of \u201canti-style\u201d: much of the dialogue consists of the protagonist saying \u201cOK\u201d.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Katie Kitamura\u2019s \u201cAudition\u201d is narrated by a New York actor who inhabits two \u201csubtly yet pivotally opposed realities\u201d. \u201cI hated it, and yet it has remained on my mind all year\u201d \u2013 which might be a \u201csign of a novel built to last the judging process\u201d. Rounding out the shortlist is Susan Choi\u2019s \u201cFlashlight\u201d, a multigenerational saga set in North Korea<\/a>, America and Japan<\/a>, which \u201cturns on the legacy of a father\u2019s disappearance\u201d. It\u2019s undeniably a \u201cpowerful story\u201d, but it struggles under the weight of its own ambition.<\/p>\n

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\u2018Consistently brilliant\u2019<\/p>\n

Announcing the shortlist, Doyle complained about the overall quality of the 153 novels submitted: often, he said, the panel had wondered \u201cwhy we had been asked to read\u201d them. But the judges have done \u201cextremely well\u201d, said Lucy Thynne in The Daily Telegraph<\/a>. This is \u201cone of the most consistently brilliant\u201d shortlists in years.<\/p>\n

As for who will win, Desai (who won in 2006 for her last novel, \u201cThe Inheritance of Loss\u201d) \u201cmight be most people\u2019s tip\u201d. Yet for my money, Miller\u2019s \u201cThe Land in Winter\u201d \u2013 a subtle, grown-up tale about a \u201c1960s that isn\u2019t yet swinging\u201d \u2013 is \u201cstronger\u201d, and should be picked by the judges next month.<\/p>\n

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