The longlist for the 2015 National Book Awards was announced last week, and a big congratulations goes to Welcome to Braggsville by T. Geronimo Johnson and Mislaid by Nell Zink for making the fiction list!
From the PEN/Faulkner finalist and critically acclaimed author of Hold it ‘Til it Hurts, Welcome to Braggsville is a dark and socially provocative southern-fried comedy about four liberal UC Berkeley students who stage a mock lynching during a Civil War reenactment. Their journey, through backwoods churches, backroom politics, waffle houses and drunken family barbecues, is uproarious to start but will have surprising (aka disastrous) consequences for everyone they meet.
Mislaid is a sharply observed, mordantly funny, and startlingly original debut about the making and unmaking of the American family that lays bare all of our assumptions about race and racism, sexuality and desire.
I hope you've all had a chance to read these two excellent books, and if not, now's your chance to catch up before the 2015 National Book Awards finalists are announced on October 14!
Click here to see all of the longlisted titles.
-Amanda