The results of last night’s Booker Prize – the most prestigious and generous prize for literature in the country – were not entirely as anticipated. In a notably strong shortlist, which was finely balanced with three men and three women, it was anticipated that Andrew Miller’s The Land in Winter would be the frontrunner for the £50,000.
Miller, who was previously nominated for the prize in 2001 with his novel Oxygen, may have been the best-known author on the shortlist. The Land in Winter is certainly the best-selling of the six, with sales that were rumoured to be in excess of the other five novels combined. It was the bookie’s favourite, and, as an admirer of the novel, I was even tempted to put a tenner on what seemed a sure thing.
Szalay’s victory last night furthers the sense that there is a new game in town
Yet chairman Roddy Doyle and his judging panel, which included the actress and publisher Sarah Jessica Parker and novelist Kiley Reid, saw things differently and gave the award – and its munificent cheque – to the Hungarian-British author David Szalay for his novel Flesh. Announcing its victory, Doyle called it ‘a dark book, but we all found it a joy to read’, and said that it was ‘very clear that this was the book that all five of us liked most’. Szalay – a popular winner, if reaction at the event and on social media can be taken as any kind of guide – commented during his acceptance speech that:
There was a sense of risk being taken. And I think it’s very important that we did take those risks. Fiction can take risks – aesthetic, formal or even moral risks. It’s important the novel community embraces risk.
If this was a guarded dig at an industry that seems to have disappeared ever more up its own fundament over the past few years, it went down well. Flesh was published to rave reviews – and the approval of famous fans who have included the eclectic likes of Dua Lipa and Stormzy. This was because of, not despite, its intense focus on working-class masculinity, which has been a subject that literary authors have preferred to shy away from for a considerable time. (Last year’s winner, Samantha Harvey’s Orbital, went into space to avoid any such earthly considerations.)
As Doyle said, Flesh ‘homes in on a working-class man, which ordinarily doesn’t get much of a look in’. The novel’s protagonist is intentionally inarticulate and monosyllabic, and the book itself is written in a spare, laconic style to match him; in other words, it is that rarest of things, literary fiction that actually aims to consider what it is like to be a man in a world that seems increasingly opposed to conventional representations of masculinity, and does so to award-winning effect.
I had been sceptical when the judging panel was announced – Parker seemed an incongruous celebrity addition, although she does have her own literary imprint, SJP Lit – but they should be congratulated for a bold, even daring decision. Coming as it does in the same week as the overdue and belated vindication of the author Kate Clanchy, who was subjected to near-career and life-ending abuse over claims of racism and ableism, it may be that Flesh’s victory represents something of a turning point in an industry that has often been seen to give into pressure and to embrace modishness, rather than concentrate on publishing the best books by the best authors.
The Society of Authors found itself dragged down into the mire by the Clanchy affair, and it was not too long ago that major publishers found themselves, ridiculously, hiring ‘sensitivity readers’ in order to second-guess any potential concerns that might arise from their authors’ books. (As someone whose first biography was of the decidedly problematic poet Lord Rochester, I can only guess how poorly that would have fared with such censors.) However, publishing remains a business like any other, and it may have dawned on those at the top that society has changed and that simply ignoring or patronising contemporary concerns is no longer the profitable way forward. Szalay’s victory last night – and, by extension, the triumph of male-focused literary fiction – only furthers the sense that there is a new game in town. Writers, readers and editors alike should be quietly rejoicing this morning.
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