Olivia Cram
Professor Frank
Prize Fiction
December 8, 2021
Final Judging of the 2020 Booker Prize
Britain’s Booker Prize is a prize given out to novels, typically fiction novels, that seem to excel on the basis of literary merit. It is a constant debate among literary scholars to determine the specific criteria that allow a novel to become nominated, or even win the Booker Prize. The winner of the Booker Prize receives an official award, a cash reward and an increase in publicity that is thought to increase their book sales. Through the investigation of Susan Gallagher’s Contingencies and Intersections: The Formation of Pedagogical Canons and Stephen M. Levin’s Is There a Booker Aesthetic? Iterations of the Global Novel, I was able to determine the two most noteworthy and typical criteria for the Booker to be reader appeal and reliability along with the ability to entertain through scandal. There were five novels shortlisted for the 2020 Booker Prize and one winner. Burnt Sugar by Avni Doshi, The Shadow King by Maaza Mengiste, Real Life by Brandon Taylor, This Mournable Body by Tsitsi Dangarembga and The New Wilderness by Diane Cook were the five shortlisted novels, leaving Shuggie Bain by Douglas Stewart to be named the winner. Shuggie Bain encompassed the relatability and appeal to the reader as mentioned by Gallagher, while also being able to entertain through scandal, as Douglas Stewart refused the award. Shuggie Bain showcases these criteria better than the other nominees which is ultimately why it deserves to win.
Susan Gallagher introduces several types of literary canons throughout her piece, starting with the imaginary canon followed by her idea of the pedagogical canon. The imaginary canon has no defined type of author or content, whereas the pedagogical canon focuses on the criteria for texts taught in higher level courses. She makes the claim that “in order for a text to be widely adopted as part of the pedagogical canon, it must hold a certain amount of attraction for what Carey Kaplan and Ellen Cronan Rose, following Samuel Johnson, call the common reader” (62). Because the Booker Prize focuses on fiction novels, I felt the idea of a novel being interesting to a common reader was an important criteria for a Booker Prize winning novel. A novel is typically published with the purpose of being sold, providing a source of income for the author. In order for a novel to make sales requirements, the novel has to be marketable to an audience. The more people the novel is marketable to, the more sales will be made. Likewise, the Booker functions to shed light on new novels and authors in order to increase their publicity and their sales.
Likewise, Stephen Levin’s piece aims to focus on the impact of scandal among the Booker Prize as a motive to gain more publicity. In the 2020 Booker scenario, Douglas Stewart refuses to accept the award after Shuggie Bain was declared the winner. Stewart’s motivation for this may be unknown, but one could imagine that it had something to do with the increase of publicity after his refusal was known to the public. Levin states that “the literary system generates both a type and the means to subvert and destabilize this type with the production of supplementary narratives, a process sustained in this instance by intervening the event of ‘scandal’” ( 481). A scandal gives rise to the idea that all publicity, even bad publicity, is good because attention is being drawn. Much like politics, when there is a severe distaste for one side, the other side often receives die-hard supporters. Likewise, scandal within the Booker Prize draws media attention for the prize itself, and the author or subject provoking the scandal. In this case, the Booker received more publicity as their award was entirely rejected and Stewart gained publicity for being the one refusing the prize. He will both gain support and lose support, as people love a good debate. Either way, his novel and himself as an author are now a topic of conversation amongst literary scholars and those interested and involved in the Booker Prize.
Shifting focus to why Shuggie Bain won in the first place, this novel entirely draws in its readers while also invoking a response stemmed through scandal. Shuggie Bain focuses on topics such as alcoholism, family relationships, gender fluidity, physical and sexual abuse as well as childhood in general. This novel follows the story of a young boy, Shuggie, and his close relationship with his mother, Agnes, who is battling alcoholism. A main topic of this novel is gender identity, as Shuggie is thought to be gay, although he’s too young for the characters and reader to know for sure. On page 218 of the novel, Stewart says, “he didn’t want to be pretending it was OK to be playing with girls’ toys or touching the dirty bits of boys in secondary school. He didn’t want to be anything like the lemonade girl. He didn’t want to be like Agnes. He wanted to be normal”. This quote follows a section in the book where Shuggie found himself enjoying playing with girl dolls and became incredibly uncomfortable and vulnerable by the encounter. Also, he had previously had an unwarranted sexual encounter with a boy from school and was left feeling ashamed and afraid to be mistreated by men in the way his mother often is. The variety of characters in this novel allows for at least one character to be somewhat relatable for any reader, and they all intertwine to tell the story so beautifully. Many people can relate to not feeling comfortable in their own skin or with their sexuality, as well as not wanting to grow up like their parents. Further, there were numerous other character dynamics throughout this novel that provide some sort of character relatability and appeal to any reader. Libby, a fellow Booker judge in the 2020 decision, opposed this idea because she felt Shuggie Bain wasn’t literary enough to win an award. She would have liked to have seen Mengiste’s The Shadow King win instead. However, Mengiste didn’t offer the relatability that Stewart did with his novel and tended to seem desirable to a smaller type of audience, making it much more difficult for the common reader to be interested in.
Overall, specific criteria and the actual selection of novels among prizes such as the Booker seem to be a hot topic of debate among literary scholars and others simply interested in award winning literature. After reading several publications from different literary scholars about criteria of literary merit and award winning in general, along with scholars who chose to analyze the Booker Prize specifically, I have concluded that appeal to the common reader paired with the ability to entertain through some form of scandal seem to be the criteria most important to the Booker Prize. After having read all of the novels shortlisted for the 2020 year, I have concluded my final ranking for the novels as follows: Shuggie Bain, Burnt Sugar, Real Life, The Shadow King, This Mournable Body and The New Wilderness. I agree with and understand the final decision to grant Shuggie Bain the winning slot, as this novel was incredibly relatable and intriguing to a wide variety of readers. There were dynamic characters present throughout the novel that offered a sense of relatability to virtually any type of reader. Secondly, Douglas Stewart really brought his nomination home by refusing the award. His refusal to accept the award brought attention and publicity to the Booker Prize and to Douglas Stewart himself. If I were an official Booker Prize judge in reality, I would be immensely confident in my decision to present the award for the 2020 Booker Prize to Douglas Stewart for his novel Shuggie Bain.
