National Book Critics Circle 2018 shortlist (for fiction)

A couple of weeks back the National Book Critics Circle announced its shortlist for 2018. This year’s nominees were:

Milkman by Anna Burns

Slave OId Man by Patrick Chamoiseau, translated by Linda Coverdale

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson

The Mars Room by Rachel Kushner

The House of Broken Angels by Luis Alberto Urrea

I have read two of the books – Milkman and The Mars Room – both of which I liked but didn’t love. The Milkman is certainly not as challenging or dense as has been reported by some critics, and when it’s on song the writing is sublime, but I found it to be a bloated book (which to be fair is a complaint I make about a good deal of fiction). And the Kushner is good, especially the bits dealing with female incarceration, but parts of it didn’t work for me (not that I recall what those parts were).

I’ve had Largesse on my TRB pile for 12 months. I own a copy of The House of Broken Angels, but I’ve not read it. I hadn’t heard of Slave Old Man until now. I intend to read all three.