Annal:2003 Whitbread Book Award for First Novel
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Whitbread Book Award in the year 2003. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
Vernon God Little: A 21st Century Comedy in the Presence of Death
- 2003 Booker winner
- 2003 Whitbread-1st Novel winner
- Score: 20.53
In the town jail of Martirio, Texas — under the terrifying care of the dynastic Gurie family, and wearing only his New Jack trainers and underpants — fifteen-year-old Vernon Little is in trouble. His friend has just blown away sixteen of his classmates before turning the gun on himself. And Vernon has become the focus of the whole town’s need for vengeance, and the media’s appetite for sensational content — true or not. When the tricky Mr. Lesdema arrives in town — with a covert mission to promote himself from TV repairman to crack CNN reporter — Vernon thinks he…
- 2003 Orange shortlist
- 2003 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 12.53
Anne Marie’s dad, a Glaswegian painter and decorator, has always been game for a laugh. So when he first takes up meditation at the Buddhist Center, no one takes him seriously. But as Jimmy becomes more involved in a search for the spiritual, his beliefs start to come into conflict with the needs of his wife, Liz. Cracks appear in their apparently happy family life, and the ensuing events change the lives of each family member.
Donovan completely captures these lives in her clear-eyed, evocative prose, rendered alternately in the voices of each of the main…
An Evening of Long Goodbyes: A Novel
- 2003 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 6.53
Charles Hythloday observes the world from the comfortable confines of Amaurot, his family estate, and doesn’t much care for what he sees. He prefers the black and white sanctum of classic cinema—especially anything starring the beautiful Gene Tierney—to the roiling and rumbling of twenty-first-century Dublin. At twenty-four, Charles aims to resurrect the lost lifestyle of the aristocratic country gentleman—contemplative walks, an ever-replenished drink, and afternoons filled with canapes as prepared by the Bosnian housekeeper, Mrs. P.
But Charles’s cozy…
- 2003 Whitbread-1st Novel shortlist
- Score: 6.53
Unlike typical coming-of-age novels, An Empty Room looks at youthful cynicism and narcissism seriously. Twenty-seven-year-old Talitha Stevenson does not patronize the emotional lives of her characters with glib humor, coy wit, or fanciful nostalgia. Inspired by her own experience of growing up too fast among families affected by divorce, Stevenson’s debut questions our perceptions of sexual intimacy as an endlessly renewable resource and asks if it is possible to simply use it up.
Nineteen-year-old Emily lives a carefree life filled with swinging…
