"This year's roster features two debuts - down one from last year, and a far cry from 2022's eight - and one author, the great Joy Williams, whose previous nomination occurred more than 50 years ago, for 1974's State of Grace. (Check out that incredible Vintage Contemporaries cover.) Williams's The Pelican Child, which comes out in November, is a collection of short stories taking place in "an indifferent and caustic world.""
"Likely less caustic is Bryan Washington's Palaver, his third novel, about a gay man living in Japan whose mother appears in his life after a period of estrangement. The Antidote, by Karen Russell, follows a cast of five characters, one of them a "prairie witch," during a Dust Bowl-era drought in Nebraska. The author's debut, Swamplandia!, was nominated for the Pulitzer the year that committee decided not to award a fiction prize - maybe this is her chance at redemption."
"Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness has five leads, too: It's about a friend group made up of Black millennial women whose lives and affections shift as the decades cruise by. And in Flashlight, by Susan Choi, a Korean American family contends with generations of tension and unease; it is also on the Booker Prize's Fiction Longlist. The judges for the fiction category this year are Rumaan Alam, Debra Magpie Earling, Attica Locke, Elizabeth McCracken, and Cody Morrison,"
The National Book Foundation released a Fiction Longlist with two debuts and the return of Joy Williams, last nominated in 1974. Williams's The Pelican Child, due in November, collects stories set in "an indifferent and caustic world." Bryan Washington's Palaver follows a gay man in Japan who reconnects with an estranged mother. Karen Russell's The Antidote centers five characters, including a "prairie witch," during a Dust Bowl drought. Angela Flournoy's The Wilderness traces Black millennial friends across decades. Susan Choi's Flashlight examines generational tension in a Korean American family and also appears on the Booker longlist. The awards ceremony will take place on November 19 in New York.
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