The Shortlist for the 2014 Flaherty-Dunnan First Novel Prize has been revealed! The winner will be announced on December 9th. Learn more over at The Center for Fiction and we congratulate the authors on their success. And without further delay, the shortlist:
The Enchanted by Rene Denfield
Jessica says: “I have never come across a book quite like this one before. The Enchanted is a story as dark and ridden with despair as it is beautiful and hopeful. Told by an anonymous inmate on death row, it allows us to peek through a keyhole into the human soul. The narrator’s ability to portray the prison as an enchanted place will alone plant a seed of awe in you…”
Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Molly says: “Henderson’s prose is lyrical and unrelenting. Alcohol-fueled escapes and escapades contrast with startling moments of clarity as Rose struggles to find herself in the heady atmosphere of Haight-Ashbury and Pete struggles to find his daughter.”
The Great Glass Sea by Josh Weil
“[Weil’s] language is exquisite, his sentences glorious. In fact, [he] writes the kinds of sentences you want to go sniff and then slosh around in your mouth for a while before heading into the next paragraph. The kind that make you set the book down and think, the kind that can break your heart with their truthful simplicity.” —Sherri Flick, Ploughshares
The Invention of Exile by Vanessa Manko
“Vanessa Manko is a voice for the years to come. Her first novel, The Invention of Exile, is an ambitious tale of a Russian émigré in Mexico City. It is an unflinching portrait of how our lives are structured around the complications of geography, beauty and chance, and, at its core, it is a story about those who live in the double shadows of home and history.” —Colum McCann, author of Transatlantic and Let the Great World Spin
Land of Love and Drowning by Tiphanie Yanique
“A few years ago, Tiphanie Yanique wowed us with her phenomenal story collection, How to Escape from a Leper Colony. Now she brings us this astonishing and wondrous novel. Multilayered, multigenerational and epic in both talent and scope, Land of Love and Drowning is a stunning first novel about family, history, home and much, much more. Tiphanie Yanique’s tremendous talents and incredible storytelling will astound you and leave you breathless.”—Edwidge Danticat
The Land of Steady Habits by Ted Thompson
“A book that is funny, shrewd, and heartbreaking by turns, The Land of Steady Habits concerns the lost-and-found souls of Connecticut and Manhattan, and at every point this novel offers both pleasure and insight into its cast of characters. You don’t expect a first novel to be as inward and worldly as this one is, and at the same time to be so readable. Ted Thompson’s dialogue is so good, so unerring, that he must have perfect pitch. A wonderful debut.” —Charles Baxter, author of The Feast of Love
We Are Not Ourselves by Matthew Thomas
“The mind is a mystery no less than the heart. In We Are Not Ourselves, Matthew Thomas has written a masterwork on both, as well as an anatomy of the American middle class in the 20th Century. It’s all here: how we live, how we love, how we die, how we carry on. And Thomas does it with the epic sweep and small pleasures of the very best fiction. It’s humbling and heartening to read a book this good.” —Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End
We can’t wait to find out who will be named the winner in December, but these are all great books worth the read. We’ll be keeping busy until then!
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