Perhaps times really are a changing for the Booker Prize. With the announcement this morning of this year’s longlist, we see the inclusion of four novels that could be directly categorised as speculative fiction – that’s (almost) a third of the list in total. Which has to be a record.
This fills me with hope for Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments, for a start, with any niggling fears that the book had been produced mainly in response to the recent TV renaissance of The Handmaid’s Tale largely allayed. It’s made me want to read the John Lanchester (words I never thought I’d catch myself saying) and confirmed reports from reviewers I trust that Jeanette Winterson’s Frankissstein is a significant achievement. I’m not the world’s most insistent fan of Max Porter’s Lanny – in comparison with Jon McGregor’s similarly conceived Reservoir 13, I found it somewhat insipid – but its themes, form and language certainly resonate, and it’s greatly encouraging to see a novel that features the voice of a woods monster land itself on the Booker longlist!
The rest of the list is no less inspiring. Kevin Barry’s Night Boat to Tangier and Lucy Ellman’s Ducks, Newburyport are already on my to-read list along with the new Deborah Levy and the Valeria Luiselli – how great it is to see such a goodly clutch of openly experimental novels featuring. Lovely also to see Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other on there – one of my most enjoyable reading experiences of the year so far – and even the Salman Rushdie is tempting me.
I still don’t get the love for My Sister the Serial Killer, but hey. Taken as a whole, this list is enthralling, progressive and just a little bit groundbreaking. Squint at it in a certain light and it could be the Goldsmiths. I think this could be my favourite Booker longlist to date.
Could this be the year a science fiction novel wins the Booker Prize? Way too soon to call of course, but at least we can honestly say the odds have never looked better.