On the Vulture blog yesterday afternoon, Boris Kachka spun out an elaborate rationale for the conventional wisdom that has Denis Johnson‘s Tree of Smoke pegged as tonight’s fiction winner at the National Book Awards ceremony. To summarize his argument: Debut writers don’t win (except when they do); “important” books win (except when they don’t); short story writers don’t win (except when they do); literary insiders win (except when they don’t). All of which boils down to the fact that Johnson is “a big name writer… [whose] sprawling Vietnam novel is a sweeping indictment of American military ambitions with obvious topical parallels.” (Looking for insight into the nonfiction, poetry, or young people’s literature awards? You’re on your own there, friend.)
Keep in mind, however, that conventional wisdom can be wrong; most people thought the 2005 fiction competition was between E.L. Doctorow and Mary Gaitskill, right up until William T. Vollmann was named. I for one wouldn’t be surprised—in fact, I’d be pretty damn elated—to see Jim Shepard get the nod.