I love a good award shortlist, particularly if I’m familiar with the nominees in question. Trouble is, the Oscars are usually about new films that haven’t hit the UK yet, while the Booker is about new hardback novels, which I rarely buy. One could try a library, but once the list is announced there’s usually a long queue of borrowers with precisely the same idea.
The BBC National Short Story Award is much more do-able, however. This year the five stories up for the prize are available in audio form as a free podcast, plus there’s an affordable anthology in the shops. So one can easily gauge one’s own opinion on the stories in time for the announcement on Monday.
I guess this is my way of getting X Factor type thrills. Short Story Idol.
So here’s my own ranking, in suspense-attempting reverse order.
5. The Not-Dead and the Saved by Kate Clanchy
A portrait of a mother’s relationship with her son, who battles cancer throughout his life. It’s beautifully written and skillfully compresses its novel-like material in a similar way to Annie Proulx’s Brokeback Mountain. And yet it feels a little too concise, with the son shortchanged of character, never mind shortchanged of life. It also sounds heartless to say this, but I think it’s the least original of the five tales. It veers dangerously close to the ‘little epiphany’ style, that much-derided short story equivalent of the ‘Hampstead adultery novel’. That’s the trouble with death: it’s been done to death.
4. Hitting Trees With Sticks by Jane Rogers
A first-person study of an old lady with borderline Alzheimer’s. So we get an unreliable narrator, and then some. Manages to inject enough humour, but I rank this fourth because it feels more like a dramatic monologue than a short story. Favourite part:
The post has come while I was out. There’s a reminder from the optician, and a letter from the council. Of course, the optician’s is right opposite the council offices, so you’d expect that really.
3. Exchange Rates by Lionel Shriver
Or how a man’s relationship with money defines his relationship with his father, and with the world. Very up-to-date, with lots of detail about the changing pound to dollar rate, the UK property ladder, and the things Americans find most expensive over here (everything except marmalade and breakfast cereal, apparently). It has a very Roald Dahl-esque ending along the old ‘be careful what you wish for’ lines, though I’m also reminded of Dorothy Parker’s tales of urban pettiness among 1920s New York society.
2. Moss Witch by Sara Maitland
A botanist encounters an ancient witch somewhere in darkest Scotland. Excellent, original blend of hard science (specifically moss science), fantasy, folklore and flower-lore (or rather, moss-lore). Memorable images, a proper story feel, and Ms Maitland’s unique style of magical realism.
1. Other People’s Gods by Naomi Alderman
A respectable Jewish family in Hendon starts to worship a small pink statue of Ganesh the Elephant God, until the local rabbi intervenes. A story with jokes, satire, memorable imagery, witty asides, charm, and a plot steeped in puckish nerve. Despite the seemingly light nature of the tale, it touches on issues of faith and blasphemy, and keeps the reader guessing how it’s all going to pan out. Pleasantly old-fashioned and classic in feel, despite the reference to a Wii Tennis game.
So I’m rooting for Ms Alderman to win on Monday, with Ms Maitland second.
Tags: BBC National Short Story Award 2009
