Monthly Archives: April 2016

Authors Club Best First Novel Award 2016: The Shortlist

At a lunch last week, members of the Authors Club met to debate the shortlist of this year’s award – always a lively occasion. This year’s discussion was brisk and amicable. Some titles could be discarded quickly, having just squeaked on to the longlist in the first place. Others died harder. Here’s the list, with some commentary to follow.

THE SHORTLIST

Jakob’s Colours by Lindsay Hawdon (Hodder)

The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock (Myriad Editions)

The Good Son by Paul McVeigh (Salt)

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury Circus)

Belonging by Umi Sinha (Myriad Editions)

Rawblood by Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld)

 

And here’s the longlist:

 

Jakob’s Colours by Lindsay Hawdon (Hodder)

The Loney by Andrew Hurley (John Murray)

The Last Pilot by Benjamin Johncock (Myriad Editions)

The Speaker’s Wife by Quentin Letts (Constable)

The Gracekeepers by Kirsty Logan (Harvill Secker)

The Good Son by Paul McVeigh (Salt)

The Watchmaker of Filigree Street by Natasha Pulley (Bloomsbury Circus)

The House at the Edge of the World by Julia Rochester (Viking)

The Last Days of Disco by David F Ross (Orenda)

Belonging by Umi Sinha (Myriad Editions)

Mainlander by Will Smith (4th Estate)

Rawblood by Catriona Ward (Weidenfeld)

 

Throughout the year-long judging process, Belonging was the title that most appealed to our members, although on the day there was a dissenting voice (there’s always one!). In one of those weird conjunctions which often occur in prize judging, the hugely impressive The Loney ended up duelling with Rawblood (I liked both). Perhaps the biggest shock was the sudden crash of The Speaker’s Wife, up to then one of the most debated and enjoyed titles. A passionate intervention inspired a sudden reallocation of loyalties. The Good Son and Watchmaker started strong and remained so, garnering a range of positive reports. Jakob’s Colours was the stealth title that crept up and stubbornly refused to be dismissed.

Of the overall submissions, I’d like to highlight two: the exquisite Weathering by Lucy Wood (Bloomsbury), and The Flight of Sarah Battle by Alix Nathan (Parthian). The latter, set in 1790s London and Philadelphia, is that rarity, a historical novel which deals exclusively with those at the lower end of the social order – in this case London radicals ardently seeking political reform, with a particular focus on women throwing off the shackles of conventional marriage, a la Mary Wollstonecraft.

As always it’s a pleasure to read through the submissions and see how many impressive debuts are published each year, although that doesn’t make judging any easier. But our task is complete – it’s over to Anthony Quinn, this year’s guest adjudicator and himself a former BFNA winner, to make the final decision, announced on 7 June.

 

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A Frankenstein breakfast… and lunch… and tea

Pretty much every month from now on till April 2024 marks the anniversary of something significant in the lives of those hectic, high-achieving younger Romantics. But this summer’s anniversary is special even by their standards. From May to July 1816 Lord Byron took up residence in the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva. On 27 May he met the poet Shelley for the first time, accompanied by Mary Godwin. He had already become intimately acquainted with Mary’s stepsister Claire, who facilitated the introductions.

The Shelley party moved next door and the two poets procured a boat for excursions on the lake (one perilous outing almost caused the death of Shelley; but the Fates dictated he was not to drown until 1822). However, the rain was so incessant and the skies so dark that many days and evenings were spent around the fire at Diodati. The friends talked of galvanism and new scientific theories; then they all tried to spook each other with a ghost story competition. The result, famously, was Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein.

Yesterday John Murray’s legendary premises in Albemarle St opened for a one-off exhibition of letters, drafts and original reviews connected with Frankenstein and its slighter sibling, The Vampyre, a novella by Byron’s doctor, Polidori. In addition, a specially commissioned performance, ‘One Evening in Summer’ allowed visitors a peek into the gloomy, candlelit salon of Diodati. Jay Villiers was a saturnine, brooding Byron; Richard Goulding a tense, febrile Shelley; Nicholas Rowe charmed as the poignantly eager Polidori; and the poet Pele Cox, director and deviser of the piece, played a cool and playful Mary.

The celebrations began over croissants and coffee with readings from Frankenstein by Damian Lewis as a savage yet poignantly needy monster, and Helen McCrory as a chilly, intense Mary/Frankenstein. In the audience I spotted some old friends, chatting to Miranda Seymour, author of a wonderful biography of Mary, and talking about Romantic science and ballooning with Richard Holmes, author of Shelley: The Pursuit and The Age of Wonder. It was also good to see Giuseppe Albano, curator at Keats-Shelley House in Rome, who hosted two previous Pele Cox productions, ‘Unbound’ and ‘Lift Me Up, I Am Dying’, the latter an evocation of Keats’s last days, supported by his artist friend Joseph Severn – brilliantly played by Rowe, again.

Cox’s short drama played out four times in all, and I had volunteered to set the scene with an introduction to each performance. I decided to focus on a different aspect of the story each time rather than repeat the same speech, stressing the piecemeal evidence we have for what actually happened on those wild, wet nights, and what each person’s role might have been in the psychodramas that ensued.

Then it was over to the actors. The protagonists sat around a rumpled table in candlelight, mulling over their wine as though they’d long finished dinner but were loth to go to bed. Although I must have heard the piece seven or eight times now, including rehearsals, the text, taken almost entirely from the diaries, letters, prose and poetry of the protagonists, cast its spell every time. Subtle differences and nuances developed as the day went on. ‘Did you like my grape work?’ laughed Jay in the green room.

As first Byron, then Polidori, then Shelley left, Mary remained at the table alone, mourning the loss of everything she loved. That was the reality, she affirmed; all the rest of her life proved to be the dream.

Many thanks to John Murray VII and his wife Virginia for their generous and jolly hospitality during the day, and to the performers for allowing me to be part of this thrilling and memorable experience.

 

 

 

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