General Discussion

Here I am, abusing the hospitality of the Man Booker by promoting the Canadian Giller Prize on their site, but they have always been good-natured about it before. Besides, this year's Giller winner might be next year's Booker contender.

I've opened a discussion group for the 2009 Giller here -- http://kevinfromcanada.wordpress.com/category/2009-giller-prize/ -- for anyone who would like to drop by. It should be an interesting year, with books from established Canadian writers like Munro, Atwood and Michaels, along with promising new faces. Booker forum participants have always been kind to the Giller, so please drop in.

Significant dates: longlist Sept. 21; shortlist Oct. 6; winner, Nov. 10. So you can get your Booker reader done and then move on.

According to the following article from this website, Alice Munro supposedly proposed to have her new book, "Too Much Happiness", withdrawn from Giller consideration:

http://www.themanbookerprize.com/perspective/articles/1244

It's certainly a lovely gesture, though her publisher might not be so keen on the idea!

Archer: I had asked around and been told that this year's book was in the running (she did pull one out before when she was a judge). I have asked for clarification from someone attached to the Giller and will report results -- the competition certainly changes if Alice does withhold her book. And I don't think her publisher would mind that much, since her audience is so well established.

Thanks for the spot and the post.

Archer: I have an email from the Giller people dated June 16 saying Too Much Happiness "is being considered" -- as a former winner, her publishers do not have to nominate it. I presume that since then it is possible she has instructed the judges to withdraw it (the author of the piece you link to is her publisher) and I have asked for clarification on which version is correct. Sorry about the confusion but as I indicated before it would definitely change the lineup if she has removed herself from consideration. Her last book, The View from Castle Rock&lt was removed from consideration as she was a judge that year.

A Giller official emailed me this morning, Archer, to say that Alice Munro told them two weeks ago that she did not want her book submitted and that that decision was final. Thanks for raising this on the site -- there has been no public announcement and I do think those who follow the Giller will be interested. As a two-time winner and Canadian icon (and an advanced age, if I can say that discretely) she would have been a heavy favortite to win it all.

Thanks for investigating this, Kevin. I definitely agree that Alice Munro would have to've been considered a heavy favorite to win any and all fiction prizes in Canada this year. She seriously pondered retirement after the publication of "The View from Castle Rock", so it's not impossible that "Too Much Happiness" might be her final book. The international recognition of the Booker couldn't have come at a better time, either.

Archer: Your perceptive reading pre-dated the Globe and Mail, Canada's most influential national newspaper, by more than a week. They have just discovered that Alice Munro has withdrawn her book. Well done!!! KevinfromCanada

KevinfromCanada that is a very interesting development and must really open up the prize. It is not unheard of for authors to request such an omission and I believe Atwood once requested one of her works not to be submitted for the Booker.
Apart from the obvious candidates who should we be looking out for this year?

It is certainly an interesting development, since Munro would have been an obvious frontrunner. Her new book -- Too Much Happiness -- is excellent (I've reviewed it on my blog and from what I can tell it has got excellent UK reviews).

Almost as interesting, this year's Giller jury is truly international -- Alistair MacLeod (Canadian story writer and novelist), Victoria Glendenning (UK novelist and biographer) and Russell Banks (upstate New York novelist).

Atwood's The Year of the Flood would be the remaining "big" book -- it missed the Booker longlist and I suspect the jury makeup doesn't point to a love of speculative fiction (and they won't be carrying the Canadian "icon" baggage). She's promoting it with "theatre" performances in churches and cathedrals (a ploy that is not to my taste), with the first due up at the Edinburgh Book Festival this week. There has been heavy security here on advance copies of the book -- I know only that it is a prequel to Oryx and Crake.

Anne Michaels' The Winter Vault is another "name" -- again, lukewarm reviews and no Booker (or Orange Prize) longlisting. Bonnie Burnard is the other previous winner (SUDDENLY -- all in caps, not a good sign) but it is not out until late September and I have seen no early reviews.

Two Newfoundland novels have attracted attention. Lisa Moore's February is set around the Ocean Ranger oil rig disaster -- I found it wanting, but Moore's style tends to impress juries more than it does me. Michael Crummey's Galore is, according to the author and reviews, inspired by One Hundred Years of Solitude and explores Newfoundland mythology -- it's next up on my list once I finish the Booker list.

There's a French-to-English translation, Dany Laferriere's Heading South, set in Duvalier Haiti, that has attracted pre-publication attention. The French version has already been made into a movie in the 1980s -- How to Make Love to a Negro -- he says he has virtually rewritten the book (although again in French) for this translation.

I'm not certain whether my favorite read so far -- Robert Arthur Alexie's Porcupines and China Dolls -- qualifies. It was first published in 2002 and the publisher went broke the next week, so it disappeared from sight. The version I read had a 2008 copyright -- I don't know if there was enough rewriting to qualify this version as a new work.

All of which points to the likelihood of a number of longlist titles from first novelists and smaller publishing houses. The economic crunch has put my normal sources of reviews on these out of business so I am out of touch on this front.

I've previously included on this thread a link to my Shadow Giller post on my blog and won't repeat it. For those who don't know, bookermt was the Shadow "international" juror last year (Colm Toibin was on the "real" jury). This year's international juror is Trevor Berrett, a regular visitor to these forums (although this year he is not trying to read the whole longlist -- does promise shortlist thoughts).

Sorry about the length of the post. I promise updates if I see, hear or read promising titles. I don't know how many of these titles are available in the UK (Munro, Atwood and Michaels certainly are).

Not so much security over advance copies of The Year of the Flood in the UK. It's in stock on Amazon despite not being officially published for another week. I suppose most publishers just let Amazon break their embargoes rather than even pretend that they might impose sanctions on it.

I received a copy of the Atwood a couple of weeks ago but don't have any strong intention of reading it. Ursula le Guin in the Guardian yesterday wrote a positive review. The book arrived along with a copy of William Boyd's new novel Ordinary Thunderstorms, which is also widely available a week or so before publication date, and which turns out to be a thriller so cheesy and schlocky that it can only be the result of a forfeit Boyd incurred in a game of dare.