Tales of literary skulduggery and a brilliant pastiche
– shortlist announced for the fifteenth Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize
Sebastian Faulks’s affectionate Wodehouse pastiche joins novels by Helen
Fielding, Hanif Kureishi, John Niven, Joseph O’Connor
and Edward St Aubyn on the shortlist for this year’s Bollinger
Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction.
Now in its fifteenth year, the 2014 shortlist was
selected following many hours of deliberation, aided
by glasses of Vintage Bollinger Champagne, by the judges: broadcaster and
author James Naughtie; David Campbell, Everyman’s Library publisher and
Peter Florence, Director of The Telegraph Hay Festival.
David Campbell comments:
“The shortlist for our fifteenth prize is one of the strongest we’ve ever had. All
the books on the list are of great calibre and quality which makes the job of
choosing just one of these witty, zestful novels as the winner almost
impossible.”
The prize recognises the best comic novel
of the last twelve months. Past winners have included critically acclaimed
writers such as Will Self, Howard Jacobson, Ian McEwan and Terry Pratchett. The
shortlist spans a variety of themes, locations and time periods, but each novel
captures the comic spirit of PG Wodehouse.
The six shortlisted novels are:
·
Jeeves and
the Wedding Bells by Sebastian
Faulks (Hutchinson)
Described by
The Guardian as ‘a wonderfully happy book’ Sebastian Faulks has used PG
Wodehouse’s much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster (fully authorised by the
Wodehouse estate) to create, in his own words, ‘a nostalgic variation - in which a memory of the real thing provides the tune and these pages
perhaps a line of harmony’.
·
Mad About
the Boy by Helen Fielding
(Jonathan Cape)
The nation’s
much-loved singleton (now widow) returns for a third time, stumbling through the challenges of single-motherhood, tweeting, texting
and rediscovering her sexuality in what SOME people rudely and
outdatedly call 'middle age'. ‘She remains the quintessential comic heroine on her third outing’ (Guardian).
·
The Last
Word by Hanif Kureishi (Faber
& Faber)
Hanif
Kureishi’s seventh novel, The Last Word is an outrageous, clever and
very funny story of sex, lies, art and what defines a life - ‘important as well
as enjoyable’ (Independent). Harry, a young writer, is
commissioned to write the biography of Mamoon, the eminent Indian-born writer
now based in England. Harry wants to uncover the truth of Mamoon’s life;
his publisher seeks a more naked truth ….
·
Straight
White Male by John
Niven (William Heinemann)
Straight
White Male is ‘an enjoyable satire
of the film industry, publishing and academia’ (Guardian) which sees
Kennedy Marr as a novelist from the old school. Irish, acerbic, and a
borderline alcoholic and sex-addict, his mantra is drink hard, write hard and
try to screw every woman you meet…
·
The Thrill
of it All by Joseph
O’Connor (Harvill Secker)
‘A humane and funny love letter to the power of music’ (Irish
Independent), from Thatcher-era London to the Hollywood Bowl comes a novel
that rewinds and fast-forwards through a soundtrack of struggle and laughter.
·
Lost For
Words by Edward St Aubyn
(Picador)
Edward St Aubyn’s eighth novel is razor-sharp and fabulously entertaining. It cuts to
the quick of some of the deepest questions about the place of art in our
celebrity-obsessed culture, and asks how we can ever hope to recognize real
talent when everyone has an agenda. Particularly when judging a book
prize. This is a ‘scathing, satirical and
laugh-out-loud funny’ (Huffington Post) book which might strike a few
chords with those in the literary world.
As is customary, this year’s winner will be announced
just ahead of the Hay festival on Monday 19 May. The winner will receive a
jeroboam of Bollinger Special Cuvée, a case of
Bollinger La Grande Année
and a set of the Everyman Wodehouse collection which now totals over 90 books.
The winner will also be honoured with the presentation of a locally-bred
Gloucestershire Old Spot pig, to be named after the winning novel.
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