The Booker 2019 Longlist
by Sunita
This year’s Booker Prize longlist was announced today. I recognized every book on the list, which is a first for me. Booker completists are going to find it difficult to read every book if they’re not tied into the publishing industry (at a minimum through Netgalley) and even then, I doubt anyone that isn’t Very Important to Promotion is getting the Atwood before its very prominent launch in September. The list of 13, from a total of 151 submitted or called in:
- Margaret Atwood (Canada), The Testaments (Vintage, Chatto & Windus)
- Kevin Barry (Ireland), Night Boat to Tangier (Canongate Books)
- Oyinkan Braithwaite (UK/Nigeria), My Sister, The Serial Killer (Atlantic Books)
- Lucy Ellmann (USA/UK), Ducks, Newburyport (Galley Beggar Press)
- Bernardine Evaristo (UK), Girl, Woman, Other (Hamish Hamilton)
- John Lanchester (UK), The Wall (Faber & Faber)
- Deborah Levy (UK), The Man Who Saw Everything (Hamish Hamilton)
- Valeria Luiselli (Mexico/Italy), Lost Children Archive (4th Estate)
- Chigozie Obioma (Nigeria), An Orchestra of Minorities (Little Brown)
- Max Porter (UK), Lanny (Faber & Faber)
- Salman Rushdie (UK/India), Quichotte (Jonathan Cape)
- Elif Shafak (UK/Turkey), 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (Viking)
- Jeanette Winterson (UK), Frankissstein (Jonathan Cape)
Of the thirteen, ten have already been published in the UK and the other three will be released between 29 August and 9 September (the Levy, Rushdie, and Atwood respectively). If you’re in the US and don’t want to pay import prices and/or wait for Book Depository/Blackwell to send you the print copies, I’ve found seven available either in ebook or hardback form.
I have five books in hand and have read a sixth (Lanny, reviewed here). The other four UK-published books are all available via KoboUK, so I’ll work my way through the five I have and then pick up the others as I go along. As in previous years, I’ll post my thoughts about the books here.
I don’t have strong feelings about the list this year. There’s only one debut novel (the Braithwaite) and while there are no US heavy hitters and only one US-origin author, there are at least three entries which are set in the US. There’s plenty of gender and ethnic diversity, but geographically it’s a heavily UK-origin list. There are plenty of books that I would have loved to see on the list, but there are so many books published every year that there are many more worthy books than slots. And when you remember that publishers have limits on how many they can submit, it’s impossible to know if the other worthy books were even sent in.
I’m looking forward to several quite a bit. The outlier on the list, in every way, is Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport, which is 1040 pages, written in a single sentence (after the first page), and published by a tiny press called Galley Beggar. I’m all for unusual books, and I absolutely did not expect to see this on the longlist; the Goldsmiths’ or Republic of Consciousness’ lists, sure, but I didn’t expect it to appeal to a Booker jury. I’m very happy to be wrong! I actually have an ebook copy in hand right now because I preordered the (print) novel on a whim in the spring and the publishers kindly sent an ebook as part of the purchase. I’m hoping against all experience that my gigantic print copy is part of my current held-mail pile at the USPS and will be waiting for me when I return.
I’m also looking forward to the Kevin Barry book, which I put on hold at the library a while ago, and I really enjoyed the excerpt from the Rushdie entry that was published in the New Yorker this week. I rarely read the New Yorker‘s fiction, but I decided to start it yesterday (before the announcement) and didn’t stop until I was done. I’m on the hold list at the library for that one as well but I’ll probably buy it when it’s released. The Luiselli is one I checked out and then returned without reading, but I’ve meant to go back to it, and same with Lanchester’s The Wall. They were both not-now books, not not-ever. And after avoiding it for months, I finally read My Sister the Serial Killer last night. It was great! I shouldn’t have been put off by the serial-killer angle, it is much more than that. Review to come soon.
ReaderWriterVille 
Sunita, I’m disappointed that the Booker jury didn’t take pity on rabid Booker followers by reducing the number of titles on the longlist in compensation for the length of Ducks, Newburyport. I’m guessing that Ducks may be the longest book ever longlisted.
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It is such a brick, isn’t it? And the repetition (“the fact that” over and over, plus baking) and the more or less single sentence on top of that. But it’s the book that most saves the list from being full-on Posh Bingo. So many known quantities, so many books that will score high on the “readability” metric.
But hey, I’m going in anyway, so I have no business griping.
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I enjoyed Lucy Ellmann’s previous book, which was quite different from this, and thanks in part to my Joycean friends from grad school I am tempted by the challenge of Ducks, Newburyport. (Plus I once had a boyfriend who hailed from Newburyport). I’m not sure what else I might try. I’ve never really liked Atwood. I’ve had Evaristo’s previous book on my library wish list forever but never actually checked it out…. I don’t feel very inspired to tackle the list this year, but maybe I’ll catch the fever.
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I skipped my usual attempt to read everything on the longlist last year, but I think I will try again this year.
Like you, this year I recognised more of the books on the longlist than I usually do (not all, though!). There are quite a few I was interested in already, and some of the new ones to me sound great as well. I’m weirdly excited about the challenge of Ducks, Newburyport. I loved the last one-sentence book that was longlisted a few years back (Solar Bones), although that one was quite a bit shorter. There are also some from authors I’ve tried before unsuccessfully (Deborah Levy, Chigozie Obioma), so I may leave those till the end!
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@Liz: I’m definitely going to try the Ellmann, so I’m glad to hear you liked her earlier book. And the Evaristo looks interesting; this should be the push to get me to read it (I remember the reviews and a GR discussion before the longlist came out).
@Rosario: I’m so glad you’re reading the list this year! I’ve missed your commentaries on it. You were the one that got me reading the list in earnest.
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I know I’m going to cave and read some now. . . . Probably well after the shortlist is announced, but that’s OK!
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I have a terrible time being motivated for non-shortlist books once the shortlist is announced. I still have The Water Cure in my TBR from last year. I wasn’t that interested in it and when it didn’t advance, it just sank to the bottom of my ereader. I keep telling myself I’ll read it, but it hasn’t happened yet …
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I have a collection like that too. I can’t actually get hold of most of them—on order at the library, or not even that. So that will slow me down. And some I really don’t feel like reading. I can’t become a Canadian citizen because I just don’t like Atwood 😉 and I’m not keen on the Lanchester either. Dystopian futures don’t appeal to me, though I know it’s unfair to dismiss them all like that.
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LOL. I read The Handmaid’s Tale back when it came out, and I remember being impressed by it, but that’s all I’ve read, and I haven’t watched the TV show. I don’t really need to see it updated and Made Relevant For Today. And unless I hear something unusual (in the good sense) about the sequel, I’ll probably pass.
I was amazed to be able to score four ebooks right away from my library, although it clearly helps that most have been out for months.
I’ve seen a couple of readers talk about the Lanchester as being reminiscient of Exist West, which is something I’ll have to think about. I generally don’t go for dystopian fiction either (enough dystopia in the present these days, thanks). But his take is one that mostly works for me, in that it concentrates on how people live rather than the world itself.
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I taught Handmaid’s Tale back in my TA days (and it works so well for an intro undergrad class), and my husband wrote on some early Atwood, which I actually enjoyed, for his dissertation. Atwood also created a lot of controversy in CanLit circles when she defended someone accused of harassing grad students in UBC’s MFA program. It’s a long, complicated, messy, ongoing story, as such things often are, and it also means that now she’s one of those writers that—if you’re so inclined—you have to decide if you’re still willing to read.
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Oh I remember that. Yes, it was unpleasant, and especially difficult in a small academic community.
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Late to the comments as usual — Have read Braithwaite’s book and enjoyed, but that’s it.
Am intrigued by the Ducks, Newburyport — just from the discussion here. I think the Booker people must really love to put at least one really quirky novel on the long list. I remember in 2014 Kingsnorth’s The Wake made the long list — and that was a novel written in “updated” Old English about an Anglo-Saxon guerrilla fighter in the years after the Battle of Hastings.So a one sentence 1044-page book in modern English sounds quite doable, but I’m waiting for the library copy. And if I don’t get a chance to read it, well I’ve already read My Sister the Serial Killer, which is definitely a quirky novel.
I’ve been a bit ambivalent about Atwood for years, about half her books that I have read I’ve enjoyed; the rest have been meh at best. Handmaid’s Tale, which I read when it was first published, felt so perfect at the time. But I’m acquainted with some of the writers and activists caught up in various aspects of UBC mess and other CanLit MeToo moments. Atwood’s responses to these writers, who are mostly young, female/LGBTQ people of color, on Twitter and in the newspapers and elsewhere has been hugely disappointing (but not sadly totally surprising). So no interest in her new book nor have I bothered watching the TV show.
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I had forgotten the UBC mess until Liz reminded me, but yeah, that put me off Atwood too. I also wonder exactly why she decided she had to write a sequel now. Even apart from the fact that we know it’s coming, unlike the original Handmaid’s Tale, I just don’t see how it can have the same impact. Although the publicity machines will do their best to convince us …
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