2021 Exeter Novel Prize award ceremony and judge's comments
A very enjoyable award ceremony for the 2021 Exeter Novel Prize took place last Saturday 30th April. At risk of repeating myself (I do every year) it is a pleasure and a privilege to meet and then hear from the six fantastic finalists. Literary agent Kate Nash had the very difficult task of choosing the six from a long list of thirty, and then, the even more difficult task of choosing the winner. We were all agog to find out who it would be as only one can claim the big trophy. Congratulations and our very best wishes to Amita Murray for her novel Thirteenth Night.
In the Shelter of Each Other - Tracey McEvoy (Highly Commended)
This entry brimmed with energy, the characters coming to life from the first page, the reader drawn effortlessly in their world. We meet Bonna as a young person, who’d come to the UK as a baby, a wartime refugee as an ethnic Albanian, from Kosovo, with her friend Dita in the first scene at the fairground while Katy Perry’s Firework blares out. From that moment onwards the reader is hooked on Bonna’s story.
Ten Miles of You - Emma Albrighton
‘People expect stodge in winter,” Elliott says, “Cinnamon, rum and raisin, Christmas pudding.” This entry drew us immediately into the ice-cream world of Ivy, but this light start to the novel showing Ivy with her business partner Elliott talking about ice cream flavours is a light start to what is a very emotional story involving Ivy who visits her sister who is in a hospice, and fellow hospice visitor Ben. With complex characters this entry delivers realism alongside intrigue.
The Candidate’s Husband - Wendy Sacks Jones (Highly Commended)
The entry delivers an entire compelling hook in the opening paragraph meaning that the reader is completely gripped from the very start and compelled to keep reading to find out how this story will unfold. This is the story of a man who sets out to help his wife succeed in politics but unintentionally destroys her. Secondary school teacher Kirsty is the candidate and local journalist Rick in the candidate’s husband. The story unfolds seemingly effortlessly and feels completely realistic.
The Ground You Walk On - Jacqueline Gittens
Written from the first person, the reader is immediately in the world of Mendel, a young Jewish boy in 1933 in Czechoslovakia. Written with descriptive detail that is never overdone, the setting and tension is on every page as the story begins to unfold with young Mendel witnessing and navigating the action and dialogue within his family.
The Profile - David Goldstein
The voice of Adam, aged 39, the protagonist is so strong and so compelling the reader cannot leave him, with the information of where we are and why and what might be happening unfolding so slowly, the suspense of this, the tension of this feels almost unbearable. “I can’t tell you why but the way this entry is written it simply must just go on the shortlist,” said one of the team here who was reading the longlisted entries with me and I didn’t need to read very much pages before I knew I agreed.
Thirteenth Night - Amita Murray (Winner)
The seemingly effortless realism of this entry, combined with the immediate atmosphere of the setting and landscape, draws the reader in to the lives of the characters, an actor, his wife and a podcaster, Oona, the unreliable narrator of this story, who is asked by his wife to investigate his murder.
This entry brimmed with energy, the characters coming to life from the first page, the reader drawn effortlessly in their world. We meet Bonna as a young person, who’d come to the UK as a baby, a wartime refugee as an ethnic Albanian, from Kosovo, with her friend Dita in the first scene at the fairground while Katy Perry’s Firework blares out. From that moment onwards the reader is hooked on Bonna’s story.
Ten Miles of You - Emma Albrighton
‘People expect stodge in winter,” Elliott says, “Cinnamon, rum and raisin, Christmas pudding.” This entry drew us immediately into the ice-cream world of Ivy, but this light start to the novel showing Ivy with her business partner Elliott talking about ice cream flavours is a light start to what is a very emotional story involving Ivy who visits her sister who is in a hospice, and fellow hospice visitor Ben. With complex characters this entry delivers realism alongside intrigue.
The Candidate’s Husband - Wendy Sacks Jones (Highly Commended)
The entry delivers an entire compelling hook in the opening paragraph meaning that the reader is completely gripped from the very start and compelled to keep reading to find out how this story will unfold. This is the story of a man who sets out to help his wife succeed in politics but unintentionally destroys her. Secondary school teacher Kirsty is the candidate and local journalist Rick in the candidate’s husband. The story unfolds seemingly effortlessly and feels completely realistic.
The Ground You Walk On - Jacqueline Gittens
Written from the first person, the reader is immediately in the world of Mendel, a young Jewish boy in 1933 in Czechoslovakia. Written with descriptive detail that is never overdone, the setting and tension is on every page as the story begins to unfold with young Mendel witnessing and navigating the action and dialogue within his family.
The Profile - David Goldstein
The voice of Adam, aged 39, the protagonist is so strong and so compelling the reader cannot leave him, with the information of where we are and why and what might be happening unfolding so slowly, the suspense of this, the tension of this feels almost unbearable. “I can’t tell you why but the way this entry is written it simply must just go on the shortlist,” said one of the team here who was reading the longlisted entries with me and I didn’t need to read very much pages before I knew I agreed.
Thirteenth Night - Amita Murray (Winner)
The seemingly effortless realism of this entry, combined with the immediate atmosphere of the setting and landscape, draws the reader in to the lives of the characters, an actor, his wife and a podcaster, Oona, the unreliable narrator of this story, who is asked by his wife to investigate his murder.
