National Book Award Finalists Announced

By Lynn Andriani -- Publishers Weekly, 10/15/2008 10:20:00 AM

Author Scott Turow announced this year’s National Book Award finalists in Chicago earlier today. The finalists include two previous NBA winners and three debut novelists. Among the fiction finalists are Peter Matthiessen, a 1979 winner for nonfiction, for his novel Shadow Country (Modern Library); and Marilynne Robinson, a finalist in 1983 and 1989, for her novel Home (FSG). Two of the fiction finalists are first novelists: Rachel Kushner for Telex from Cuba (Scribner) and Salvatore Scibona for The End (Graywolf). The third writer nominated for a debut novel is Kathi Appelt in the young people's literature category. Journalist Jane Mayer; poets Frank Bidart, Mark Doty and Richard Howard; and YA fiction writer Laurie Halse Anderson have all been finalists in previous years and are up for the award again this year. In poetry, Richard Howard is up for the award for Without Saying (Turtle Point), after having won it in 1983 for his translation, Charles Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal. In the nonfiction category, American history and the war on terror are major themes.

In addition to Salvatore Scibona's debut from Graywolf, two other small press authors were among the nominees: Richard Howard, with Turtle Point, and Patricia Smith--her Blood Dazzler is published by Coffee House Press.

The winners will be announced on November 19 at a ceremony in New York City hosted by Eric Bogosian. Maxine Hong Kingston and Barney Rosset will receive lifetime achievement awards. A video of the announcement is available for viewing at www.nationalbook.org.

The full list of finalists follows.

Fiction:
Aleksandar Hemon, The Lazarus Project (Riverhead)
Rachel Kushner, Telex from Cuba (Scribner)
Peter Matthiessen, Shadow Country (Modern Library)
Marilynne Robinson, Home (FSG)
Salvatore Scibona, The End (Graywolf)

Nonfiction:
Drew Gilpin Faust, This Republic of Suffering: Death and the American Civil War (Knopf)
Annette Gordon-Reed, The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (Norton)
Jane Mayer, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals (Doubleday)
Jim Sheeler, Final Salute: A Story of Unfinished Lives (Penguin)
Joan Wickersham, The Suicide Index: Putting My Father's Death in Order (Harcourt)

Poetry:
Frank Bidart, Watching the Spring Festival (FSG)
Mark Doty, Fire to Fire: New and Collected Poems (HarperCollins)
Reginald Gibbons, Creatures of a Day (Louisiana State Univ.)
Richard Howard, Without Saying (Turtle Point Press)
Patricia Smith, Blood Dazzler (Coffee House Press)

Young People's Literature:
Laurie Halse Anderson, Chains (Simon & Schuster)
Kathi Appelt, The Underneath (Atheneum)
Judy Blundell, What I Saw and How I Lied (Scholastic)
E. Lockhart, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks (Hyperion)
Tim Tharp, The Spectacular Now (Knopf)

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