How do you win the Booker Prize? I have no idea. Get in touch if you do. I’ve been shortlisted and longlisted and served as a Booker judge, and while there are certain perennial features that would tempt you to make a wager on outcomes, there’s enough random wildness to make it interesting.
This year’s Booker longlist of 13 titles was described by the chair Mary Beard last week as ‘something for everyone’. Maybe those with a fetish for lesbian boxing dramas set in 1920s San Francisco will feel let down, but it is fair to say this year’s longlist covers a lot of ground.
The announcement of the longlist always launches a thousand whines because even if you can manage something for everyone, something isn’t enough for most observers. Too little of this, too much of that.
The antagonists are familiar. Celebrities vs newcomers. Bloated corporate publishers vs whippet seditionaries editing from a kitchen table. Men vs women. Women vs men. Yarn-merchants vs punctuation-haters. Straight vs gay. Agit-prop vs beauty. Caucasians vs non-Caucasians. If nothing else, the longlist gets books debated.
The Booker is the one prize that can change your life as a writer. Longlisting is great but it’s a trade matter – it means your next book should get published and probably better published. Sometimes shortlisting can rocket sales, but getting the Booker is the jackpot.
