UPDATE: This post will remain up top today, waiting for your vote. New posts will be going up below.
A while back, The Mumpsimus started a list of the “most unjustly neglected books of the year.” It’s a fabulous idea, I think. Matt’s own nomination went to The Labyrinth by Cathrynne M. Valente, with Travel in the Mouth of the Wolf by Paul Fattaruso as a runner-up.
You should read the entire post, including the comments for other titles. Then if you like, add your own nomination — either here or there. I’ll post the final list of ones suggested here after the weekend. (UPDATE: The Mumpsimus has put up his reader responses. Relatedly, Matt agrees that Plot Against America was sadly neglected this year — perhaps you heard of this deserving little novel, which posits an alternate universe in which Sigmund Freud (campaign slogan: Vat are you dreaming?) returns from the grave to make a successful bid for the presidency, uttering the notorious 1952 edict, “First we analyze all the Jews” … )
The truth is I haven’t been wild about much of what I’ve read this year, and the few titles that really blew up my skirt (so to speak) did get ample notice. I guess I’d cheat and callout Mitch Cullin’s A Simple Trick of the Mind which, even though it isn’t due out for a few more months, risks being overwhelmed by the Chabon juggernaut.
Comment by TEV — 12/17/2004 @ 10:16 pm
I’ll toss George Garrett’s Double Vision in the ring.
Enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/18/2004 @ 9:21 am
Edward just posted about and I put it on my list: Vanishing Point by David Markson. Brilliant and moving.
Comment by derikb — 12/18/2004 @ 9:30 am
I just finished a whole column on the subject for next week’s edition of the Sun, but I’ll add a vote for Adam Braver’s DIVINE SARAH, a short novel about Sarah Bernhardt that I absolutely adored, and got almost no press at all.
Comment by Sarah — 12/18/2004 @ 3:16 pm
MAybe The Sailor of the Inner Sea by Lawrence Thornton or An Unfinished Life by Mark Spragg or maybe The Bad Boy’s Wife by Karen Shepard or maybe Prisoners of War by Steve Yarborough or perhaps the Rope Eater by Ben Jones or Inheritance by Samantha Chang?
Comment by birnbaum — 12/18/2004 @ 6:52 pm
It seems like I’ve seen a decent bit about the Spragg novel, but now that I think about it – most of it comes from you RB. You’re probably thinking the opposite about the Yarbrough!
Great selections.
Enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/18/2004 @ 11:04 pm
And Inheritance got a review in NYTBR but it was one of those reviews that doesn’t do a lot to excite anyone about a novel. (I take a proprietal interest, Chang being from Appleton.)
These are all great titles. Keep ‘em coming, folks!
Comment by CAAF — 12/18/2004 @ 11:47 pm
What’s a NYTBR?
Comment by birnbaum — 12/19/2004 @ 5:32 pm
Yep, I’ll second (third?) the vote for Vanishing Point. Good stuff.
Comment by Rake — 12/20/2004 @ 8:26 am
Oh yeah. “Vanishing Point” big time. I haven’t read Stephen Dixon’s “Old Friends” yet, but the Rake has. Is that worth a sizable shuffle?
And now that you mention it, China Mieville’s “The Iron Council” probably deserves more love.
Comment by Ed — 12/20/2004 @ 11:28 am
Ed, it’s funny you mention Old Friends. I was wondering about that as I haven’t seen any reviews outside Rake’s pad. And whether or not the book’s ultimately successful, you’d think a new book by an author of Dixon’s stature would be worth more ink. (But maybe I missed coverage?)
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 11:33 am
If nonfiction’s allowed, I’ll nominate “Last Mountain Dancer” by Chuck Kinder, a weird kind of beatnik-pastiche look at him and his home state, West Virginia…mountain mama…country roads….Sorry, John Denver always leaves me verklempt…
Comment by Jimmy Beck — 12/20/2004 @ 12:24 pm
Sadly, the stature of Dixon appears to be that he’s at the level where his new work is discussed on LitBlogs and by other writers – most frequently words and phrases heard seem to be “Brillant!” and “Not another…”
I didn’t see any other reviews besides that of TR and it’s been pretty much the same for his last four or five books – probably each since Frog, which is the last time I can remember reading anything about him.
And RB, a NYTBR is something you might use to make a reference to another reviewer’s skill level
Enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/20/2004 @ 12:55 pm
Thank you, Dan! I tried (fruitlessly) to think up something funny for NYTBR to stand for. Nod Your Toboggans in the Butt Ram … Novelty Yuletide Toys … You see my problem.
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 1:01 pm
Markson rocks my world. It’s a measure of my total narcissism that because I read him devotedly, I didn’t consider him neglected. ::ahem:: But you couldn’t do much better than to acknowledge Vanishing Point.
Comment by TEV — 12/20/2004 @ 2:40 pm
Not Your Tiresome Bloody Rag?
Comment by Jenny D — 12/20/2004 @ 2:40 pm
My two: Jean-Philippe Toussaint’s Television (Dalkey), Barth Landor’s A Week in Winter (Permanent).
Comment by Sam — 12/20/2004 @ 2:45 pm
I’m feeling really, really terrible because I can’t come up with anything. As soon as voting is closed, I know I will. But in a year when a Karen Joy Fowler book hit several bestseller lists, I find it hard to do anything but just be happy.
(I’m sure my disgruntled better side will emerge eventually.)
Comment by gwenda — 12/20/2004 @ 2:56 pm
Ooh, Sam, nice new titles for consideration.
Jenny, well done! Bloody Rag it is.
Gwenda, I felt sympathetic joy for you when I saw that Jane Austen Book Club had been picked by Richard & Judy (is that their names? the British talk show hosts?) as one of their 10 selections for 2005.
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 2:59 pm
I call them Punch and Judy, but I think it is. Yes, yay! That made me very happy. I hope at least some of the audience carries through to her next book.
Comment by gwenda — 12/20/2004 @ 3:22 pm
Miljenko Jergovic’s Sarajevo Marlboro (also heralded last year by Aleksander Hemon in the BBC’s Sense of the City series; more here).
Comment by Maud — 12/20/2004 @ 3:57 pm
Miljenko Jergovic’s Sarajevo Marlboro, long praised in Europe and heralded by fellow Bosnian Aleksander Hemon (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/3122879.stm), just appeared in the States this year and should have received much more attention than it did.
Comment by Maud — 12/20/2004 @ 4:01 pm
(CAAF, Dixon’s book did make the VV best of 2004 list: http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0449/vlsfaves.php.)
Comment by Maud — 12/20/2004 @ 4:05 pm
“Ed, it’s funny you mention Old Friends. I was wondering about that as I haven’t seen any reviews outside Rake’s pad.”
See:
http://www.melvillehousebooks.com/oldFriends_press.html
Comment by Dave Lull — 12/20/2004 @ 4:08 pm
I’m shocked (shocked, I say!) not to see Birnbaum in here pimping Jim Harrison’s “True North.”
Also, wouldn’t Jim Shepard’s “Project X” and “Love and Hydrogen” be eligible? Where are the Shepard groupies? You couldn’t find enough of them in Q1 2004! Did they all disappear down the rabbit hole?
Comment by Ed — 12/20/2004 @ 4:19 pm
I thought both those Jims got a fair amount of attention in 2004, didn’t you? Though I feel bad for Shepard that his publisher forgot/didn’t nominate him for the NBA. Still, let’s add ‘em to the list, in celebration of all that is jejune and Birnbaum in this world.
Maudie and Dave, thanks for links. I totally forgot about the VV thing. I mean to include them with the lists below too…
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 4:34 pm
Actually that would be another great list–books that got first half hoopla that everyone’s forgotten since.
My vote, or maybe it’s just me: Tom Perotta’s LITTLE CHILDREN. Hello? Did it get swallowed up by the Rothmonster, or will it boomerang back into consciousness when the paperback’s released?
Comment by Sarah — 12/20/2004 @ 5:02 pm
I’m all for Shepard as well. Did Dan Chaon’s You Remind Me of Me get any notice. Loved the book.
Comment by bookdwarf — 12/20/2004 @ 5:30 pm
I believe Dan Chaon did receive a fair amount of reviews. I remember a good one by Laura Demanski in the Chicago Tribune, and I think Barnes & Noble had it for one of their up-front-of-the-store picks.
Maybe it’s another title for Sarah’s category of half-forgotten novels of 2004?
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 5:59 pm
It seems to me that even books that get some pretty good attention get so little in relation to the few big ones that I feel most books would qualify as overlooked. And then there’s the sad, sad overlooked completely.
Depressing, huh? Chaon definitely had good buzz, but I think it was probably so dark the word of mouth was weak even though it’s a lovely book. And this year in SF genre fiction? It feels like Susanna Clarke is IT as far as official End of Year notice. I wish Sean Stewart’s book Perfect Circle had taken off. But it will be a builder over time, most likely, and it did pretty well in terms of reviews.
(Can you tell my email inbox is empty?)
Comment by gwenda — 12/20/2004 @ 6:37 pm
I was going to tell everyone to go to the Melville House site for “Old Friends” reviews, but someone beat me to it. RP also linked to the Village Voice write-up at one point. “OF” qualifies as underread, I reckon.
Comment by Rake — 12/20/2004 @ 6:38 pm
Gwenda, do you have any others in the SF/fantasy genre to recommend?
p.s. Y’all, Maud didn’t purposefully double-comment above. One of her comments got whisked into my spam filter as it had more than 2 links. I just released it — as those links look helpful.
Comment by CAAF — 12/20/2004 @ 6:52 pm
I’m behind on genre books this year, but there are a couple that come to mind: Elizabeth Hand’s Mortal Love and Geoff Ryman’s Air. Mortal Love wasn’t really pubbed as genre though.
Comment by gwenda — 12/20/2004 @ 8:13 pm
At this point The Old Geezer doesn’t need me to establish his bon fides, though thanks Edward for raising Harrison consciousness in various nests of literary ambition.
As long as I am being outed for my devotions why no mention of my adoration of Percival Everett
Also, y’all forgot Ron Rash.
And yes indeed Steven Dixon deserves way more notice than he gets
Comment by birnbaum — 12/21/2004 @ 1:38 am
RB, I think everyone held off on the Everett thinking I’d bring him up and seeing as ol’ CAAF first alerted me to Mr. Rash, well, I just assumed she’d …
Must be nice to know people are reading what you jot down these days though, eh?
Enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/21/2004 @ 7:34 am
The Rash is an excellent addition. I should have thought of that, except (like Mark mentioned the blind spot with Markson) I’ve got one for Rash. He’s selling well in the two Asheville bookstores I frequent (Malaprop’s and Accent on Books), so I don’t even think of that not translating outside the region.
Comment by CAAF — 12/21/2004 @ 10:52 am
I’d like to nominate Samantha Hunt’s novel The Seas. It is truly one of the oddest, most startlingly beautiful books I read all year. I think it did make the VV list but I have seen very few other reviews or articles on Hunt.
Comment by Liz Younger — 12/21/2004 @ 11:14 am
Oooh, I want to read The Hunt. I’ve been told it’s amazing.
Comment by gwenda — 12/21/2004 @ 12:03 pm
Um, that should have been read the Hunt book(!). I don’t think Samantha Hunt would appreciate it if I tried to read _her_. This is my last day of work this week and I’m getting a little bit punchy.
Comment by gwenda — 12/21/2004 @ 12:04 pm
I’d just like to start off by making everyone jealous by noting that I TOTALLY KNOW STEVEN DIXON, and that once he even intimated that he was impressed that I’d written ten books in five years, even though my books are formulaic ya drivel and his are real. He apparently values ANY type of productive hackery.
Anyway (cough), I would like to nominate WE HAVE TO TALK ABOUT KEVIN, because we do.
Comment by Old Hag — 12/21/2004 @ 1:21 pm
Excellent, you guys! Old Hag, I thought your point in Newley Parnell’s survey was right-on to, in regards to unfair categorization of “What Was She Thinking?” by Zoe Heller as chick lit ..
Comment by CAAF — 12/21/2004 @ 1:31 pm
Well, okay I TOTALLY know Lionel Shriver .
By the way, We Have to Talk About Kevin is her 5th or 6th novel.
Comment by birnbaum — 12/21/2004 @ 4:58 pm
That’s no fair! You TOTALLY know everybody. You’re friends with James Woods for crying out loud.
Air! Clear out and give CAAF some air! Somebody get her a glass of water – my bad for mentioning the name – I should have known the reaction it would bring.
enjoy,
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/21/2004 @ 5:13 pm
You can only imagine the shame at which I’ve noticed the s on the end of that name… I think I’ll just lurk for a little while.
Why did you let me Mr. Kinison? Why?
Comment by Dan Wickett — 12/21/2004 @ 10:33 pm
Dan, I type the “s” sometimes too — and I enjoy when others accidentally do as well. It makes such a funny visual of that part. actor in tableau: Walking across Harvard campus, sitting at his typewriter writing of Henry James, etc…
Comment by CAAF — 12/22/2004 @ 10:12 am
For my money, the most neglected book of 2004 was Clare Dudman’s amazing historical fiction, One Day the Ice Will Reveal All Its Dead. Brilliant novel about Alfred Wegener’s life–the guy who put forward the continental drift theory. Wegener was also an avid explorer, so the science is intermingled with the tale of his Arctic journeys. It’s a poignant and amazing novel. I dislike historical fiction for the most part. I loved this book.
Jeff
Comment by Jeff VanderMeer — 12/23/2004 @ 6:08 pm
What Authors Did You Discover This Year?
Carrie’s tackled the underappreciated and the disappointments of the year. I’d like to raise her with an oldie but goodie approach. What authors did you read or “discover” for the first time this year? Feel free to name authors, contemporary…
Trackback by Edward Champion's Return of the Reluctant — 12/29/2004 @ 2:34 pm