Now that some time has passed to let the National Book Award nominations sink in, the reactions have been most interesting. The LA Times, in profiling the NBA’s decision to announce the nominees at City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco, also gets a quote from fiction judge Marianne Wiggins on the eclectic, 9/11-heavy list. She said she and her colleagues winnowed 258 novels. She argued in vain on behalf of Cormac McCarthy‘s THE ROAD. As for Thomas Pynchon‘s AGAINST THE DAY, she said, “It was patently obvious it wasn’t a contender.” Ouch.
For more city-centric takes, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Carlin Romano focuses on Ken Kalfus‘s nomination (he’s married to Inky architecture critic Inga Saffron) and the Seattle Times’ Mary Ann Gwinn features Timothy Egan and Jess Walter, the latter who was able to attend the nomination announcement. It was, as the Spokane author put it to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s John Marshall, “the last thing you expect as a writer.” The Washington Post features more from non-fiction nominee Taylor Branch, and the SF Chronicle chimes in with more on holding the announcement at City Lights.