Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.
The swanky Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony is the one night a year Canada’s literati becomes its glitterati, trading mouldy tweeds and moth-eaten sweaters for, well, something a little less mouldy and moth eaten. (With the Gillers airing on CTV for the first time this year comes the delicious possibility that Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim will be working the pre-show red carpet, demanding to know “who” Margaret Atwood is wearing.)
With $40,000 going to the winner — plus $2,500 each for the runners-up — the Giller is one of Canada’s biggest arts awards and arguably the most important. Just being nominated boosts an author’s sales. Winning almost guarantees a spot in the CanLit pantheon and in book clubs across the country.
For those of you who haven’t spent the fall boning up on the season’s hottest titles, here’s a primer on the who, what and why of the nominees vying for the big prize.
Luck by Joan Barfoot (Knopf Canada)
Plot: Nora, a
successful sculptor, wakes up one
morning to find her furniture-designer
husband, Philip, dead beside her.
The rest of the novel follows Nora
and the rest of the household — Beth,
a former model and Nora’s muse,
and Sophie, the caretaker and financial
manager — as they
face the aftermath of Philip’s
death.
Previous awards: Abra (1978)
won the Books in Canada First Novel
Award; Critical
Injuries was shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium
Book Award and longlisted for the
2002 Man Booker Prize.
What the critics say: “Luck is
a sustained, sardonic satire on mortality.
... A black comedy that has a happy ending as
temporary and random as luck itself.” (Independent
on Sunday)
The odds: 3 to 1. Barfoot’s
the veteran writer, a tried and true
thoroughbred.
The Time In Between by David Bergen (McClelland & Stewart)
Plot: Charles,
an American Vietnam veteran living
in British Columbia, raises his
three children alone following
their mother's death. As they
grow up and away from him, he
retreats further into his memories
of the war. A connection with
a fellow vet leads him back to
Vietnam in an attempt to make
peace with his past.
Previous awards: A Year
of Lesser (1996) won the McNally Robinson
Book of the Year Award; The Case of Lena
S. (2002) won the Carol Shields Winnipeg
Book Award and was a finalist
for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction,
the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award
and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. Sitting Opposite My
Brother (1993) was a finalist for the
Manitoba Book of the Year.
What the critics say: “A
beautifully composed, unflinching and harrowing
story. Perhaps the best fiction yet to confront
and comprehend the legacy of Vietnam.” (Kirkus
Reviews)
The odds: 4 to 1. Being the
only stallion among the nominees
may hurt Bergen’s chances.
Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb (Doubleday Canada)
Plot: Set against
the civil strife in Ethiopia and
Margaret Thatcher’s England, Lilly,
a white Muslim nurse, pines for Aziz, the black
activist doctor she left behind when she fled Harar.
Despite the courtship of a kind Indian doctor in
London, Lilly has remained in a 17-year limbo between
grief and the desperate hope she might see Aziz
again.
Previous awards: Mouthing
the Words won the City
of Toronto Book Award in 2000 and
Gibb picked up the CBC Canadian
Literary Award for short fiction in 2001. An Orange Prize
jury named her one of 21 “writers to watch
for in the new century.”
What the critics say: “This
complex tale about exile, romance
and human rights combines the authority of
Gibb’s scholarship on social anthropology with
the lushness of her fictional vision.” (Elle
Canada)
The odds: 3 to 1. Out of the
gate, Gibb had big critical buzz;
she and Barfoot are neck and neck.
Alligator by Lisa Moore (House of Anansi Press)
Plot: Moore’s
debut novel is a North Atlantic
gothic tale set in contemporary
St. John’s revolving around the lives of a motley
cast of characters: an aging artist, a recent
immigrant, a woman in the throes
of grief and a teenaged girl obsessed
with alligators.
Previous awards: Moore’s
short story collection Open was
a finalist for the 2002 Giller
Prize.
What the critics say: “Moore
has a keen ear for both dialogue
and a well-turned phrase, and the
writing is suffused with a reckless
joy that is at odds with the constricted nature
of the stories being told. Careful attention
to the nuances of individual voices
and consciousnesses provides the
book with immediacy and depth.”
(Quill & Quire)
The odds: 5 to 1. Still a pony
compared to her competitors, but
the only second-time Giller nominee on the list.
This longshot may win by a nose.
A Wall of Light by Edeet Ravel (Random House)
Plot: The final
instalment in Ravel’s Tel Aviv
trilogy tells the poignant, funny
and wrenching story of three generations of an
Israeli family. A Wall of Light follows
math professor Sonya Vronsky as she finds love
for the first time and uncovers some unexpected
and life-changing family secrets.
Previous awards: Ten Thousand
Lovers was a finalist for the 2003 Governor
General's Literary Award for Fiction and for the
Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It
was also named a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2003
and one of Quill & Quire's top five Canadian
novels of the year.
What the critics say: “Handling
a tricky juxtaposition of disparate
lives with grace and wit, Ravel shows
her characters forging a country out of trauma.”
(Kirkus Reviews)
The odds: 8 to 1. The true dark
horse in this race.
Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBC.ca.
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