LeClair Judges National Book Awards

Recently named one of five judges for the 2005 National Book Award in fiction, Tom LeClair was an obvious choice because of his widely published and well known literary criticism. He says the experience was “the most exciting thing” he’s done after writing reviews for 25 years. But he also adds ruefully that, as a novelist, he discovered he will “never win the National Book Award.”

What he learned during the process of reviewing the nominees’ work explains a lot about the publishing profession. LeClair was chosen because he was a scholar, critic, and independent reviewer prior to becoming a fiction writer himself. When he was interviewed for the honor, he was asked if he was open-minded about different kinds of fiction and if he was willing to devote a lot of time to evaluating the nominations. The former question easily elicited a positive response.

But the latter took some thought since LeClair discovered that there were 300 books he would have to read and review between the middle of May and August 15. By September 1, he and the other judges each had to select five to seven semi-finalists, and the list of five finalists was due by mid-October.

The reason for the excessive number of entries, he learned, is that publishers have the right to nominate any books for which they are willing to pay $100. Most tend “to show little restraint, probably because they want to keep their authors happy.” According to LeClair, this means that many of the books are “not seriously competitive and have little chance of winning.”

Early in the process the five judges communicated by e-mail, and after a couple of conference calls, “alliances of taste began to form.” Describing himself as “an obscure Midwest critic,” LeClair adds that his “academic training and experience were something of an advantage at making literary arguments.”

This is a modest assessment, given the company in which he found himself. Chair of the judges’ panel was the well-known novelist Andre Dubus III. The group also included Pulitzer Prize winner Anna Quindlen, and award winning fiction writers Rikki Ducornet and Cristina Garcia.

LeClair notes that the 2004 National Book Awards were marked by controversy because winner Lily Tuck’s historical novel,

The News from Paraguay,

was little known, so this year “people in the book business hoped for a more popular choice.

New York

magazine made E. L. Doctorow’s

The March

a heavy favorite, probably because he is a “name-brand author.”

Smiling, LeClair adds, “We fooled them though. We found a way to avoid any compromises and chose William Vollmann’s

Europe Central,

which is difficult and demanding and not likely to be a popular book. For the non-fiction winner, Joan Didion, another name-brand author, the publisher printed several hundred thousand extra copies of her

The Year of Magical Thinking.

Vollmann’s publisher printed 35,000 paperback copies.”

Although the experience meant a lot to LeClair the critic, it took a toll on the writer, who had to abandon his own work for several months. In spite of the delay, his fourth novel,

The Liquidators,

will be published in May. It follows three other works of fiction,

Passing Off,

Well-Founded Fear,

and

Passing On.