"For the first time ever, my two favorite novels of the year both won Pulitzer Prizes: Hernan Diaz’s “Trust” (rave) and Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead” (even raver)."

 

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Reviews and recommendations from critic Ron Charles. Presented by Grand Central Publishing       By Ron Charles  Email Riverhead; Harper For the first time ever, my two favorite novels of the year both won Pulitzer Prizes: Hernan Diaz’s “Trust” (rave) and Barbara Kingsolver’s “Demon Copperhead” (even raver).  Over the past century, the Pulitzer board has declined to confer a fiction prize a handful of times, but this is the first year the board has given out two fiction prizes simultaneously. You’re welcome. (Actually, lots of other people also thought these were among the best novels of the year, including Some Other East Coast Newspaper.) This is well-deserved recognition for Diaz and Kingsolver, but it’s also great news for booksellers. The Pulitzer is the only American literary prize that inspires significant book buying, and readers will be even more likely to purchase copies of these novels since they’re already well known and in stock. The new paperback edition of “Trust” went on sale last week. And despite being published in October, “Demon Copperhead” is still No. 7 on this week’s hardback bestseller list. (That doesn’t yet reflect the expected Pulitzer Bump.) These two books feel entirely different from each other. “Trust” is a challenging quartet of narratives of various forms: a novella, notes for an autobiography, a brief memoir and a diary. “Demon Copperhead” is a sweeping coming-of-age novel.  ADVERTISEMENT Content from Grand Central Publishing Out now: David Baldacci’s new 'Simply Lies' In this relentless psychological thriller from #1 bestselling author David Baldacci, a former detective and a dangerous con artist play a deadly game of cat and mouse. Only the most cunning will win.   And yet both are playing with texts in wildly creative ways. “Trust” keeps revising the story of one of the richest men in the Roaring Twenties, while “Demon Copperhead” brings Charles Dickens’s “David Copperfield” to modern-day Appalachia.  “For an Appalachian novel to get this kind of recognition hasn’t happened in my reading lifetime,” Kingsolver told me. “Rural people are nearly half of this country, but only about two percent of what we get to hear or read about, so believe me, a whole lot of people are celebrating with me.” For Diaz, the words are their own reward. “One writes for the love of language and storytelling,” he said, “looking for that unique conjunction of intellectual satisfaction, aesthetic pleasure and emotional intensity that only literature can provide. This was my sole motivation for becoming a writer. But what an immense joy and extraordinary honor it is to have received the Pulitzer Prize. So many authors who changed my life have been awarded this prize, and I still can’t believe I get to be in their company.” Next year, HBO reportedly plans to produce a series based on “Trust” starring Kate Winslet.  You can find information about all this year’s Pulitzer Prize-winning books here.