The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction - the longlist

 

    The Walter Scott Prize for Historical Fiction longlist has been announced today:

The Clocks In This House All Tell Different Times by Xan Brooks; a dark social-realist fairytale, spotlighting the shadowy underside of 1920s England.

Birdcage Walk by Helen Dunmore; it is 1792 and Europe is seized by political turmoil and violence.

Manhattan Beach by Jennifer Egan; the long-awaited novel from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author opens in Brooklyn during the Great Depression.

The Last Man In Europe by Dennis Glover; April, 1947. In a run-down farmhouse on a remote Scottish island, George Orwell begins his last and greatest work: Nineteen Eighty-Four.

Sugar Money by Jane Harris; a tale of slavery and freedom, innocence and experience, love and despair set in the 18^th century Caribbean.

Prussian Blue by Philip Kerr; France, 1956. Bernie Gunther is on the run. The twelfth book in the renowned series.

The Draughtsman by Robert Lautner; 1944, Germany. A novel which shines a light on the complex contradictions of human nature and examines how deeply complicit we can become in the face of fear.

Grace by Paul Lynch; an epic coming-of-age novel and a poetic evocation of the Irish famine as it has never been written.

The Wardrobe Mistress by Patrick McGrath; a portrait of a woman struggling to make sense of her past and imagine a future in the seedy glamour of London’s theatrical world in 1947.

Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves by Rachel Malik; 1940s rural England sets the scene for a multi-layered tale of an unlikely friendship.

The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers; C18th. Yorkshire. A gang of weavers and land workers embark upon a criminal enterprise that will capsize the economy and become the biggest fraud in British history.

The Horseman by Tim Pears; an unexpected friendship between two children, set in Devon in 1911.

The Bedlam Stacks by Natasha Pulley; set in the magical forests of South America in 1859.

    If you've read any of these do let us know your thoughts. I can speak only of Tim Pears's The Horseman, one of my top favourite novels of last year.

Comments

[Juxtabook]

The Gallows Pole by Benjamin Myers looks intriguing. Set deep in Ted Hughes country. Based on the true story of David Hartley a criminal as red in tooth and claw as any hawk of Hughes'. Phyllis Bentley (Bronte biographer) also wrote a play and a
a children's novel about the coiners in the 1960s. The latter was called Gold Pieces and was later also published by Puffin in 1972.

[Cornflower]

Many thanks for that, Catherine.

[Cathy Johnson]

I've read Birdcage Walk, The Wardrobe Mistress and Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves and really enjoyed them all. The last one was my favourite. I'm congratulating myself that these three were amongst those on my wishlist for the long list (although there quite a few more that didn't make it). I'm looking forward to reading the others on the list, some of which I'd not come across before.

[Cornflower]

Thank you, Cathy. I've had my eye on Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves so it's good to hear you liked it so much.

[Karen K.]

I just bought Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, it seems really beloved by bloggers so I'm really looking forward to it !Haven't heard of any of the others.

[Cornflower]

I do recommend The Horseman!

[Aparatchick]

Joining in the praise for Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves.

[Cornflower]

On my wishlist!
Thanks, Aparatchick.

[LizF]

I loved The Horseman and also really enjoyed Birdcage Walk. Several of the others including Miss Boston and Miss Hargreaves, Sugar Money and Grace are on my list already so it is interesting to see them on the long list.

[Cornflower]

It will be interesting to see which books make the shortlist next month.

[Rebecca]

Thanks to this list, I am midway through Manhattan Beach, which I am finding densely written, detailed, and interesting. In it, I recently encountered the word "apotropaic"--I'd never seen or heard it before!

[Cornflower]

Funnily enough, that's the second time I've come across that word in as many days!