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AM Homes won the Women’s Prize for Fiction earlier this week for her novel, May We be Forgiven.
Mark Brown from The Guardian reported on Homes’ win, quoting one of the judges, Miranda Richardson, as saying “It was so fresh and so funny – darkly funny – and so unexpectedly moving”. Brown described the book as having “a devastating car crash, adultery and a murder within the space of the first 14 pages and then never lets up as it charts the increasingly out of control life of Harry, a middle-aged Richard Nixon studies professor.” The article also includes an excerpt:
An often breathtakingly dark and crazy satire on modern American life caused a literary upset on Wednesday night when it won the women’s prize for fiction beating novels by Zadie Smith, Kate Atkinson and the bookies’ favourite, Hilary Mantel.
AM Homes became the fifth American in a row to be named winner of the £30,000 prize, formerly known as the Orange, for her sixth novel, May We Be Forgiven.
Granta’s Yuka Igarashi interviewed Homes and asked her about her thoughts on May We Be Forgiven being described as satire. Homes said she wouldn’t use that word, “We live in a moment when reality itself is somewhat surreal. The oddity or the absurdity of everyday experience is part of what I’m capturing…There was a time you could write something that was reflective of the society and also funny, woven together in that way that didn’t have to be one or the other – but I think we’ve lost sight of that.”
Read the full interview in which Homes discusses the meaninglessness of suffering, talks about her next book, which is about hospitals, and explains her fascination with America’s interdependence with China:
YI: I wanted first to ask you about the word satire as it applies to this novel and your work. Reviewers have used this word but it doesn’t seem quite right. Would you use it to describe the book?
AH: No, I wouldn’t use the word. We live in a moment when reality itself is somewhat surreal. The oddity or the absurdity of everyday experience is part of what I’m capturing. My sense is that life itself can be so incredibly painful and disturbing that if one is to survive it, one has to find the humour in it.
Book details
- May We be Forgiven by AM Homes
EAN: 9781847083227
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Image courtesy The Guardian