The 2022 Booker Prize longlist

Showing all posts tagged: Elizabeth Strout

The 2022 Booker Prize longlist

27 July 2022

The 2022 Booker Prize longlist was announced overnight, Australian time. Thirteen authors including Case Study by Graeme Macrae Burnet, and Oh William! by Elizabeth Strout, are among those included.

It includes the youngest and oldest authors ever to be nominated, as well as the shortest book, three debuts and two new publishers receiving their first ever nominations. Chair of the judges Neil MacGregor said ‘The list offers story, fable and parable, fantasy, mystery, meditation and thriller’.

The shortlist for the Booker Prize, which celebrates English language novels published in Ireland and the UK each year, will be unveiled on Tuesday 6 September 2022.

Oh William!, by Elizabeth Strout

3 December 2021

Even though their marriage ended many years ago, Lucy and William have largely remained close. Both remarried, although Lucy’s second husband died, while William, together with two children by Lucy, became father to another daughter, with his third wife. But after learning something he didn’t previously know about his mother, a disturbed William asks for Lucy’s help in finding out more about his mother’s past.

But as they travel away together, it seems it is Lucy who is on the journey of discovery. She finds herself pondering her marriage to William, and what drew them together in the first place, from their time at university. But far from simply being a story about family secrets, Oh William! is a meditation on life, the relationships that come and go, and the connections with the people around us.

Perhaps though it is life that is the mystery, rather than the sometimes unfathomable actions of loved ones. We’re left wondering how well we know those we think we’re close to, when perhaps the more pertinent question is how well we know ourselves. Oh William! (published by Viking/Penguin Books Australia, October 2021), is the ninth book by American author Elizabeth Strout, and the third in a series of novels that centres on Lucy.