March 10, 2022 · 7:57 p.m.
The long list of the 2022 Women’s Fiction Award was unveiled on Tuesday. These are the 16 titles:
The Bread the Devil Knead by Lisa Allen-Agostini
Lulu Allisonen Salt Lick
Irresponsibility of Kirsty Capes
Catherine Chidgeyren Remote Sympathy
Miranda Cowley Heller’s Paper Palace
Flamingo by Rachel Elliott
Judgment of Louise Erdrich
Build your house around my body with the help of Violet Kupersmith
Sorrow and Bliss, by Meg Mason
The Exhibitionist by Charlotte Mendelson
A book of form and emptiness by Ruth Ozeki
This One Sky Day by Leone Ross
Elif Shafak’s Island of the Lost Trees
Maggie Shipstead’s Great Circle
Dawnie Walton’s recent revival of Opal & Nev
Creatures of the Morowa Yejidé Passage
I’m glad to see Maggie Shipstead’s ‘Great Circle’ and Meg Mason’s ‘Sorrow and Bliss’ long list, as these were some of my favorite books of 2021. Some were surprised by the titles of Beautiful World, Where Are You Sally. Rooney, Sarah Moss’s The Fell and Hanya Yanagihara’s To Paradise did not undergo surgery. However, although they are very good novels, I don’t think they are the best work by these authors so far, so it’s good to see more space for others this year.
I’ve read Miranda Cowley Heller’s “The Paper Palace,” but I haven’t reviewed it – it’s a very powerful debut, and I’m not surprised to learn that Heller was the head of the HBO Drama Series for a decade, after all. the novel has a touch of a popular TV drama in the emotional dissection of a summer affair in Cape Cod. I also have a copy of Ruth Ozek’s ‘Book of Form and Gap’, which I look forward to reading soon, as I have enjoyed all of her previous novels.
Although last year’s long list was dominated by well-known authors, this year’s list includes some that are new to me. One of the five premier novels on the list that particularly interests me is Kirsty Capes ’‘ Careless ’, a maturity story based on personal experiences of the author’s care system. I’ve also seen a lot of positive reviews about Charlotte Mendelson’s ‘The Exhibitionist’ as an artist’s family prepares for their latest exhibition.
What long books have you read and which ones do you want to read?
