Journey through prose has meaning, awards don’t
- Brett Hiner: A Work in Progress
- December 21, 2020
- 852
I have always appreciated an organized bookshelf. Walking into a bookstore and seeing those tidy categories, all organized by an author’s last name, makes the meandering amongst the aisles exciting and efficient.
That appreciation does not, however, carry over to “end of year” book award categories currently being heralded across literary websites. While I understand the financial need to identify the best of the year and announcing them just as the holiday shopping season kicks into high gear, I want details that go beyond “best fiction” or “best sci-fi fantasy” or “best young adult” because those are details I can garner from reading any jacket cover.
So in the spirit of honoring my “Best Books of 2020” (even though we have a few weeks left for a book to steal an award), here are my completely meaningless awards, with titles I hope will tell you a little more than the generic, but purposeful, placement in which they often find themselves.
The Misleading Title Award goes to James Patterson and his “The Last Days of John Lennon” book. One might assume the book focuses on Lennon’s final moments leading up to his assassination outside of the Dakota on West 72nd Street in NYC. Patterson, kinda/sorta, gets around to that but not until page 300. Up until then he chronicles Lennon’s early days with The Beatles (done much better, by the way, in Mark Lewisohn’s “Tune In: Vol. I”), never really providing any new insight into the “smart” Beatle.
“The Last Days of John Lennon” is not a bad book, per se, but you might be left feeling like you have read a book report written by a junior high student. You know something is wrong when you have your phone sitting beside you while reading so you can look up more detail on the glossed-over but significant moments in one of the most tragic events in the history of music.
The Why Did It Take Me So Long to Start Reading Your Work? Award goes to William Kent Krueger. When the Wooster Book Co. closed its doors a few years back, I had to quickly use up a much-appreciated gift card. Struggling to find anything amongst their remaining inventory, an employee handed me a copy of Krueger’s “Ordinary Grace.” The Edgar Award-winning book ranked amongst my favorites of 2017. Since then I always set aside a few days each year to enjoy a few from Krueger’s Cork O’Connor series, of which there are 17 with No. 18 on the way.
Arguably the best recurring character series around, Krueger’s literary gifts move readers beyond the formulaic mystery as he consistently delivers more than an enjoyable read. “Purgatory Ridge” was amongst a favorite this year, along with his stand-alone, “This Tender Land.”
“The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue” by V.E. Schwab wins the Author Taking It Up A Notch Award. Her “Shades of Magic” series falls amongst my just-enjoyable-enough-to-keep-reading books, but “Addie LaRue” is a game changer. Initially set in Villon-sur-Sarthe, France in 1714, Addie wants to avoid the loveless marriage being forced upon her, so she prays to the gods who only answer after dark. Her prayer to become invisible is answered, leading to a life of immortality, until she is willing to give up her soul, but where she is cursed to be forgotten by everyone.
Her vagabond travels through Europe and NYC, culminating in London in 2016, make for some of the best literary fantasy of 2020. Readers cannot help but root for Schwab’s protagonist as she struggles through the centuries, struggles both self-inflicted but also as a victim of the times in which she finds herself living. In Addie LaRue, Schwab has created an independent and fascinating character who manages to make her mark in spite of the odds.
The Who Woulda’ Thunk It? Award goes to Wright Thompson for writing a book I had no intention of enjoying but certainly did. A senior writer for ESPN, Thompson chronicles the life of Julian Van Winkle III, grandson to Pappy Van Winkle — the deceased patriarch of Pappy Van Winkle’s Fine Bourbon — in “Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last.”
Ultimately, the book veers away from the nuances of making bourbon, especially the finest/most expensive in the world, and becomes more a story about fathers and sons carrying on tarnished legacies and accepting the inevitability of loss. Thompson weaves his own story into the life of Julian’s and, in so doing, asks us all to consider what it means to find contentment in family.
If pressed for a response, I do not know I could name my favorite book of the year. But, along with the aforementioned, Riley Sager’s “The Last Time I Lied” kept me guessing, the short stories in Don Winslow’s “Broken” had me in stitches and “Beautiful Ruins” by Jess Walter reminded me what it means to be taken on a journey through melodic literary prose. Given the real-life insanity of 2020, they are all journeys well worth the trip.
Brett Hiner can be emailed at workinprogressWWN@gmail.com.