Oh, the Pulitzer Prize committee has done its job well this year. Not one but two works of fiction have been awarded the coveted prize, books and writers different and notable, both dealing with the metaphor of progress and the dark side of capitalism.
TRUST, by Hernan Diaz, reviewed here previously, is a work of high drama told in few words. A page-turner of the best sort: who and what anchors the story? What actually happened? How do we differentiate truth from delusion, fact from perception. I thought it was one of the most breathtakingly brilliant novels I’ve read in many a year and so worthy of this honor. In a four-part story, Diaz riffs on patriarchy, capitalism, narcissism and opportunism, to stunning effect. I trust more readers will read now.
I have not yet read DEMON COPPERHEAD. I was planning to return first to Dickens’ David Copperfield, on which it is based, and had not yet. [My TBR pile is tottering like Pisa right now and needs to be addressed before moving on.] Even without reading it, having read every one of Kingsolver’s work since her remarkable debut, THE BEAN TREES, and her first story collection, HOMELAND, still on my shelf, with most of her others, I had no doubt it would be grand. She’s a writer with courage and conviction, and this honor is long overdue. She tends to be dismissed too easily by critics and awards because she is a cause-writer: every one of her novels, and her non-fiction, address something of what ails American society. She’s too often accused of allowing the cause to overtake the storytelling, which has been occasionally so, as in UNSHELTERED, or PRODIGAL SUMMER. Still, she sheds light on what we don’t often want to see illuminated. Although POISONWOOD BIBLE may be the book that catapulted her to commercial success, based in large part by the Oprah imprimatur, it’s frankly not my favorite, although much admired. I was mad for THE LACUNA, a complex, layered and nuanced tale, it is completely original and captivating. DEMON COPPERHEAD, attacking the opioid crisis in poverty-stricken America, is what I call a road-kill novel: you don’t want to see the carnage, but you cannot, and should not, look away. Obviously, the Pulitzer prize decision makers agree.
I applaud these imaginative and skilled novelists – Diaz with his third novel and Kingsolver well into a thirty plus year career. I applaud the Pulitzer Prize fiction jurors for recognizing great writing.
Great readers also recognize great storytelling and these books will surely stand the test of time.
Congrats to Hernan Diaz and Barbara Kingsolver. I look forward to the next in their impressive line-up.