Some reactions following the announcement that the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction was a head fake:
“Shocked…angry…and very disappointed.”
-Pulitzer fiction juror Susan Larson
“Honestly, I feel angry on behalf of three great American novels.”
-Pulitzer fiction juror Maureen Corrigan
“I was so thrilled for Karen,” Ms. Pavlin said. “Then my second response was, what a shame, because the committee had it within their power to do something so wonderful for any one of those novelists. And they, for whatever reason, chose not to.”
-Swamplandia! editor Jordan Pavlin
According to the Pulitzer’s site, the award is “for distinguished fiction by an American author, preferably dealing with American life.” But no book, apparently, was distinguished enough.
There are a lot of people who lose out with this decision, the largest group of which is the reading public, who, as the Washington Post‘s Ron Charles tweeted, “would have been directed to a good novel.” Larson said the fiction reading community hopefully will now be encouraged to “read three books instead of one,” and we couldn’t agree more. That’s why we’ve put together some good books from last year that the Pulitzer didn’t think were worthy.
Train Dreams by Denis Johnson
The Pale King by David Foster Wallace
Swamplandia! by Karen Russell
The Call by Yannick Murphy
State of Wonder by Ann Patchett
The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides
The Devil All the Time by Donald Ray Pollock
Changó’s Beads and Two-Tone Shoes by William Kennedy
We the Animals by Justin Torres
Open City by Teju Cole
Someday This Will Be Funny by Lynne Tillman
I Married You for Happiness by Lily Tuck
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach
The Buddha in the Attic by Julie Otsuka
Ghost Lights by Lydia Millet
A Moment in the Sun by John Sayles
My New American Life by Francine Prose
Stone Arabia by Dana Spiotta
The Submission by Amy Waldman
Ten Thousand Saints by Eleanor Henderson
Rules of Civility by Amor Towles
The Evolution of Bruno Littlemore by Benjamin Hale
Salvage the Bones by Jesmyn Ward
Once Upon a River by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Binocular Vision by Edith Pearlman
The Angel Esmeralda by Don DeLillo
The Family Fang by Kevin Wilson
