Annal:1993 Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in the year 1993. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1993 LATimes–1st Fiction winner
- Score: 10.43
Remember what it was like to fall in love—wildly, hopelessly in love—for the first time? Paul Kafka’s gloriously romantic debut novel recaptures love’s first days in a sparkling, bittersweet tale of awakening and longing.
Paris sets the scene for the emotional entanglements of four young Americans. Dan and Beck, just out of college, share a ramshackle garret and the friendship of Margot and Bou, two women who happen to be in love with each other. For a brief, enchanted time, the foursome revel in the bohemian splendor of the City of Light. But when loyalties…
Come to Me: Stories
- 1993 LATimes–1st Fiction finalist
- 1993 NBA–Fiction finalist
- Score: 12.43
This fresh and stunning collection of stories takes the reader deep into the heart of the most alarming and joyful human relationships.
Mourning Doves: Stories
- 1993 LATimes–1st Fiction finalist
- Score: 6.43
Readers of The New Yorker know Judy Troy’s characters well—they’re small-town, blue-collar Americans, young and old, who look for romance at the Paradise Valley K-Mart, contemplate the universe in a trailer park, or go snake-shooting in the desert. Not much comes easily to them, even if life often holds surprises. Yet they endure, for the difficulties of just getting by in a world that sometimes seems beyond their control are offset by the healing power of love.
Together for the first time in Mourning Doves, their struggles are all the more poignant,…
Like Water for Chocolate: A Novel in Monthly Installments with Recipes, Romances, and Home Remedies
- 1993 LATimes–1st Fiction finalist
- Score: 6.43
Earthy, magical, and utterly charming, this tale of family life in turn-of-the-century Mexico became a best-selling phenomenon with its winning blend of poignant romance and bittersweet wit. The classic love story takes place on the De la Garza ranch, as the tyrannical owner, Mama Elena, chops onions at the kitchen table in her final days of pregnancy. While still in her mother’s womb, her daughter to be weeps so violently she causes an early labor, and little Tita slips out amid the spices and fixings for noodle soup. This early encounter with food soon becomes…
Mother Rocket: Stories
- 1993 LATimes–1st Fiction finalist
- Score: 6.43
Rita Ciresi brings us seven award-winning stories, vibrant slices of life that are at once piercing, funny, and heartbreaking.
In the title story, Ciresi weaves a tale of a New York City dancer whose spectacular sexuality and antic humor keep a life of tragedy at bay….In “The Silent Partner,” a young woman is caught up in a love affair that is both infantilizing and harrowing.…In the linked stories, “Resurrection” and “Second Coming,” we meet a piano student hopelessly in love with his alluring teacher and at the mercy of his sexually knowledgeable older…
