Literary prizes are bound to disappoint at least as many people as they please, but when the 2014 National Book Award longlists were announced last month, there was resounding dismay over the nonfiction list in particular, which counted only one book written by a woman among its 10. This imbalance seemed the more striking for its flagrant omission of certain books (Leslie Jamison’s The Empathy Exams and Eula Biss’s On Immunity both spring to mind) that were nothing if not deserving, and that weren’t exactly flying beneath the radar.

The fiction longlist was better coordinated, at least in terms of gender, and offered a rangy set of subjects, tones and styles. There were the usual suspects, purveyors of Middle American seriousness, but there were a few flashes of hot strangeness (John Darnielle’s Wolf in White Van), and some interesting insurgents in Molly Antopol’s The UnAmericans and Emily St John Mandel’s Station Eleven, whose post-apocalyptic setting seemed the sort of thing the National Book Award (as opposed to the Pulitzer) might be too cautious to recognise.



The shortlist prunes that more eclectic batch in ways that are somewhat predictable (gone, Darnielle; gone, Antopol), but which nevertheless seems to retain a dash of intrigue and a field of genuinely deserving candidates. There are no flyweights here, no lumpy outliers, and while that’s disappointing for those who’d prefer a knottier, scrappier contest —and for those who’d like to see more eccentric, reckless, or outsiderish books recognised (or simply less caucasian ones; four of the five finalists, and nine of the 10 longlisted authors, are white)— it’s tough to complain about the five excellent novels themselves.

There is something homogeneous, or perhaps homogenising, about the National Book Award. Unlike the National Book Critics Circle Award, which at least historically has tended to settle upon bolder choices, the NBA tends to cycle past its surprises to arrive at a winner that feels obvious, even if only in hindsight. And while it’s a significant honour to win one, the question remains how much the general readership cares. It’s difficult to imagine the sorts of arguments that surrounded this year’s Booker springing up around the National Book Award, just as it’s difficult – indeed, impossible – to imagine a major American novelist taking on literary prizes as a subject the way Edward St Aubyn did recently in Lost for Words. The topic would simply be considered too small, perhaps even for a short story.

That said, if I were handicapping this race on the basis of my own sensibility, I’d tip Anthony Doerr’s All The Light You Cannot See to win. Doerr’s novel, about a blind French refugee and a German orphan whose paths collide during the second world war, is epic, emotionally generous, and wholly deserving of the prize. If I were selecting on the basis of who I think is most likely, however, I’d zip unhappily by Phil Klay’s Redeployment (probably the boldest, rawest book here) and pick Marilynne Robinson’s Lila. Robinson’s been shortlisted twice before, but never won, and so is the safest choice. Sadly, it’s never unwise to bet on the aesthetic conservatism of a prize jury.