New York – E.L. Doctorow’s “The March,” his novelization of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman’s bloody Civil War campaign, and Joan Didion’s “The Year of Magical Thinking,” her memoir of grieving over her late husband, were among the nominees announced Wednesday for the National Book Awards.
Two of the country’s most revered poets, John Ashbery and W.S. Merwin, were also finalists. The 78-year-old Ashbery was chosen for his collection “Where Shall I Wander” and Merwin, also 78, for “Migration.” Between them, they have received 12 nominations for the book awards and one award, for Ashbery’s “Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror.”
Walter Dean Myers, whose blunt descriptions of street life have led to frequent efforts to remove his books from libraries, was a nominee in the young people’s category for “Autobiography of My Dead Brother.” He was a finalist in 1999 for “Monster.”
Winners, each of whom receive $10,000, will be announced at a Nov. 16 ceremony in New York, with Garrison Keillor hosting and honorary medals going to Norman Mailer and Lawrence Ferlinghetti.
Other fiction finalists this year were Mary Gaitskill’s “Veronica,” Christopher Sorrentino’s “Trance,” Rene Steinke’s “Holy Skirts” and William T. Vollmann’s “Europe Central,” an 800-page novel, including footnotes, about Germany and the Soviet Union in the 20th century.
Also cited for nonfiction: Alan Burdick’s “Out of Eden,” Leo Damrosch’s “Jean-Jacques Rousseau,” Jim Dwyer’s and Kevin Flynn’s “102 Minutes: The Untold Story of the Fight to Survive Inside the Twin Towers” and Adam Hochschild’s “Bury the Chains.”
At least two notable releases were bypassed: David McCullough’s “1776” and J.R. Moehringer’s “The Tender Bar.”
In poetry, other finalists were Frank Bidart’s “Stardust,” Brendan Galvin’s “Habitat” and Vern Rutsala’s “The Moment’s Equation.”
