Perhaps timed to coincide with the National Book Awards, the Literary Review released the shortlist for the annual Bad Sex in Fiction Awards last week. The winner will be announced tomorrow.
Heavy-hitting nominees included John Updike, Russell Banks, and Paulo Coelho. In 2006 Iain Hollingshead won the grand prize for his two-paragraph exercise in young, bad sex from, Twentysomething. His winning passage climaxes with “a commotion of grunts and squeaks,” and is well-worth reading. The late Norman Mailer won last year.
Here’s the complete 2008 shortlist from the Guardian. Place your bets in the comments section:
“James Buchan for The Gate of Air
Simon Montefiore for Sashenka
John Updike for The Widows of Eastwick
Kathy Lette for To Love, Honour and Betray
Alastair Campbell for All in the Mind
Rachel Johnson for Shire Hell
Isabel Fonseca for Attachment
Ann Allestree for Triptych of a Young Wolf
Russell Banks for The Reserve
Paulo Coelho for Brida”