Back to 1970

Man Booker changed its rules in 1971. The previously retrospective award became a prize for the best book in the year of publication. The month of the ceremony changed from April to November. This meant that the bulk of fiction published in 1970 was never considered for the prize. Man Booker’s archivist, Peter Straus, noticed the anomaly and inaugurated the Lost Booker Prize.

The criteria were simple: any book that was published in 1970 and remains in print was eligible. A longlist of 21 titles has been reduced to this shortlist:

• The Birds on the Trees by Nina Bawden (Virago)
• Troubles by J G Farrell (Phoenix)
• The Bay of Noon by Shirley Hazzard (Virago)
• Fire From Heaven by Mary Renault (Arrow)
• The Driver's Seat by Muriel Spark (Penguin)
• The Vivisector by Patrick White (Vintage)

Of that list, I’ve only read J.G. Farrell’s Troubles – the first in Farrell’s Empire Trilogy and a considerably darker, though equally funny, book as The Siege of Krishnapur and The Singapore Grip. Farrell has a subtle talent for supporting themes with metaphors. Troubles is defined by Major Brendan Archer’s fascination with the dilapidated, hollow grandeur of the Majestic Hotel in the preludes to Ireland’s civil war. The irksome election will hamper anything more substantial than a probing attack on the rest of the shortlist, but I’ll be surprised if anything tops Troubles and its continuing relevance.