The mystery continues, another article in the NYTimes on why the heck those Pulitzer judges didn’t award a medal to a novelist, one who’s worked like the rest of us, but produced a superior work of art. Here’s my own theory. But first some background: There are 102 judges who serve on 20 juries, which means there are 5 in almost all cases, who will decide. In fiction these 5 must “review” the novels submitted to them. By a panel of readers who come up with 3 from all the books they’ve read during the year. Review, of course, is a speedier version of reading. But what may have happened–and this wasn’t mentioned by Ms. Patchett or others I’ve read–is that during the course of deliberations by these judges, one of them had not sufficiently reviewed a nominated book. A conclusion made by the other two, I’m betting, during the course of their discussion. Not something they’d want to advertise and cause embarrassment to their colleague. If this is true, we can console ourselves with the thought that those in the inner circle of judging this most esteemed of prizes will know what happened and make sure it doesn’t happen again.
I write novels, short stories, and this blog. With the exception of being in jail, there's nothing as lonely, as isolated as writing day after day, a novel. So send me a note, a comment.