Annal:1987 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the PEN/Faulkner Award in the year 1987. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1987 PEN-faulkner winner
- Score: 10.37
This remarkable novel is not only an imaginative work of the very highest order but a cross-cultural tour de force of extraordinary daring and vision.
It begins in Tokyo in 1941, when Teddy Maki and Jimmy Yamamoto, two young Japanese-American jazz musicians, are stranded in Japan after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, drafted into the Japanese army and sent to the Philippines, the scene of bloody conflict with guerrillas and American troops. Rather than act as true soldiers, the two young men attempt to disengage themselves from the savagery of a war in which they are unable to choose sides. But such innocence is impossible to maintain.
Thirty years later, Teddy Maki, by then a star of Japanese television, is still haunted by Jimmy’s death and his own failure to disobey the order of his commanding officer to shoot an American prisoner. The guilt that poisons his relationship with his wife and son and with the country in which he has chosen to live as a perpetual outsider speaks to the moral issues raised by all wars—from Auschwitz to My Lai.
- 1987 PEN-faulkner finalist
- Score: 6.37
A stunning, poetic novel about a nearly overpowering relationship, from the author of the acclaimed short story collection, Places in the World a Woman Could Walk.
The Sorcerer's Apprentice: Tales and Conjurations
- 1987 PEN-faulkner finalist
- Score: 6.37
Interweaving the real and the surreal, Charles Johnson spins eight extraordinary tales of transformations and metamorphoses.
An Illinois farmer teaches a young slave everything he knows—with fatal consequences. A young boy growing to manhood as a country sorcerer’s apprentice learns the difference between power and strength. From the first piece to the last, these stories capture very real human experiences in a new and startling light.
- 1987 PEN-faulkner finalist
- Score: 6.37
As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people—men, mostly—who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. But at thirty-eight, he suffers from incurable dreaminess, occasional pounding of the heart, and the not-too-distant losses of a career, a son, and a marriage. In the course of the Easter week in which Ford’s moving novel transpires, Bascombe will end up losing the remnants of his familiar life, though with his spirits soaring.
