Tournament of Books '12: Hiding from THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME

For those who like their Cormac McCarthy just a little more tender.

Donald Ray Pollock created the rural Ohio area chronicled in (and giving the name to) his first book KNOCKEMSTIFF as a microcosm for mid-20th-century depressed America, venal and corrupted even when it tries to do good. Even the one true innocent in THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME is eventually turned by his environment, the poverty and lack of community in his small town slowly curdling inside his chest. America!

That innocent for me was Arvin, the son of a war vet and a waitress who loses both those parents in a manner so grim* the townspeople he encounters afterward are afraid of him.Taken in by his grandmother, who is also raising a girl abandoned by her father (whose mother also came to a grisly end), Arvin grows up wary and spoiling for a fight in a town of thieves, cheats and murderers, all with perfectly respectable public faces. It's like an even darker side of WINESBURG, OHIO. If there's anything fundamentally good left in Arvin, it's because his grandmother tries to shield her charges from Knockemstiff's worst faces as long as she can.

Finding out what happens to Arvin kept me furiously turning pages even as the people he crosses paths with go from garden-variety unsavory to icky to truly depraved. Sometimes it's impossible to read a character without wishing he would just be okay on some kind of cosmic level (even as you know it's not possible). In terms of plotting, Pollock really delivers in bringing several other characters around Arvin into his trials. He's a fairly new author (THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME is only his 2nd book) and I will be anxiously awaiting his next book even as I fear to crack the cover.

ToB first-round opponent: THE SENSE OF AN ENDING, a book I didn't get to because I was stubborn and refused to buy a novella at hardcover novel prices. (I didn't mean to get all fist-shaky about it, but truly it wasn't worth it to me. Why, that's nearly 14 cents a page!) That said, I'm predicting this one will fall Pollock's way because he's the underdog against Booker Prize winner Barnes. Later today I'll put up my whole bracket, because hey, the tournament is here! In fact, this is the first matchup, tomorrow (with Emma Straub judging).

*For me it was right up there with the famous tree in BLOOD MERIDIAN. The (spoiler) tree of dead babies. That gross and horrifying. Have fun! "Oh hey, what are you reading?" "Just a book with a tree of dead babies in it. How was your weekend?"

'Cause two is not a winner, and three nobody remembers

If I were in charge of Publishers Weekly I would want the world to know that the trade is invariably first on the line with its Best Books of 2011 list. Granted, the editors and writers there enjoy an advantage over you and me in getting galleys well enough in advance that they're already into next spring's future bestsellers, but there's something about first place... Still, this year I had to hear about it from a PR person with an author on the list, not the magazine itself (which notice I appreciated, no doubt). Here's the list:

• Jeffrey Eugenides, THE MARRIAGE PLOT
• Donald Ray Pollock, THE DEVIL ALL THE TIME
• Ann Patchett, STATE OF WONDER
• Maureen McHugh, AFTER THE APOCALYPSE
• Tina Fey, BOSSYPANTS
• Robert K. Massie, CATHERINE THE GREAT
• Ali Smith, THERE BUT FOR THE
• Paul Hendrickson, HEMINGWAY'S BOAT
• Binyavanga Wainaina, ONE DAY I WILL WRITE ABOUT THIS PLACE
• Christopher Hitchens, ARGUABLY: ESSAYS

The first thing that struck me was how few of the titles I recognized (who knew someone even wrote a biography of Hemingway based around his boat, Pilar?) By this metric I have not been reading the best of the year. Last year's was a lot more familiar to me at the time. And although I loved this book, I think they might be courting backlash putting BOSSYPANTS on the list. The other book I have read up to this point, THE MARRIAGE PLOT, I loved but suspect I am too close to the material to be objective. (While I have not read the Christopher Hitchens book, it does carry one of my favorite titles of the year. A perfect merger of form and content.)

Looking at this list I'm reminded of an article written by Laura Miller on Salon a few weeks back arguing that the National Book Awards didn't matter because they chose to nominate smaller/ indie titles this year over "heavy hitters" (like the aforementioned MARRIAGE PLOT). Miller felt the NBA judges (all published authors themselves) were overreaching in trying to push books that didn't receive very much critical attention into the spotlight -- somehow punishing better books that got more media attention, for being too commonly celebrated. (You may have encountered this argument elsewhere, such as in film criticism when it is often referred to in shorthand as "cultural vegetables" -- whether you like 'em or not! No exceptions!) I can see both sides to this argument. I want my "best books" lists to actually reflect the best, not "the best with caveats A, B and C according to certain leanings," and the suggestion that nominations are politicized is not exactly surprising. On the other hand, why shouldn't an outlet like Publishers Weekly seek out the best books everywhere, not just in common coverage? That's their job, and if there were no surprises on this list I'd surely come back and complain about that. (Blogger's privilege.) And for all I know, these books whose authors and titles are a mystery to me now may end up becoming my favorite books of this year -- or next, when I can get around to them.