If I Gave the Award

Now that I have posted my review of the last of the shortlist for the 2020 Pulitizer Prize for Fiction, it’s time for my feature in which I decide whether the judges got it right. The Pulitzer Prize tends to choose only three books for its shortlist, so in some ways the choice is easier, in some ways more difficult. In this case, two of the choices were ones I really liked.

Let’s start with the one I didn’t like as much, The Topeka School by Ben Lerner. Now, there is nothing intrinsically unlikable about Lerner’s books, it’s just that they’re all about himself, as evidenced by his alter ego, Adam Gordon, being the protagonist for all and having a biography very similar to his own. I’m saying this on the basis of two books, but I think it’s true. The novels are somewhat funny, poking subtle fun at himself, and he is obviously into wordplay, but I guess I just don’t like him very much. In this case, the novel focuses on Adam’s high school years, his relationships with his friends and girlfriend, and his prowess on the debating team.

The choice between the other two novels is difficult for me. The Dutch House was my favorite Ann Patchett novel until she wrote Tom Lake, and frankly, they’re pretty much a tie for me. It’s about the disastrous effects on his children of a father’s lack of understanding, almost a willful blindness, of both his first wife, the children’s mother, and his second. It’s about the consequent loss of his children’s inheritance, the Dutch house, and their fascination with it. And it’s about the closeness of siblings who only had each other to rely on. I really love this book.

I was gripped, though, by The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead, the winning book. It’s a historical novel about the mistreatment and even murder of black boys in a Florida school for boys, aka, a detention center, based on the true history of the Dozier School for Boys. Its protagonist, Elwood Curtis, is a right-minded boy who makes the mistake of accepting a ride from a stranger in what turns out to be a stolen car. Once incarcerated in the school, he begins collecting a record of the abuses he sees.

It’s not hard to see why the judges picked The Nickel Boys over The Dutch House, a more personal novel. But that’s what I like about it. Both novels touched me emotionally, so I guess this time I declare a tie. I didn’t love The Nickel Boys as I loved The Dutch House, but it is extremely powerful. They are both very good novels.