Thriller at the Gillers

Illustration by Jillian Tamaki.

The swanky Scotiabank Giller Prize ceremony is the one night a year Canada’s literati becomes its glitterati, trading mouldy tweeds and moth-eaten sweaters for, well, something a little less mouldy and moth eaten. (With the Gillers airing on CTV for the first time this year comes the delicious possibility that Ben Mulroney and Tanya Kim will be working the pre-show red carpet, demanding to know “who” Margaret Atwood is wearing.)

With $40,000 going to the winner — plus $2,500 each for the runners-up — the Giller is one of Canada’s biggest arts awards and arguably the most important. Just being nominated boosts an author’s sales. Winning almost guarantees a spot in the CanLit pantheon and in book clubs across the country.

For those of you who haven’t spent the fall boning up on the season’s hottest titles, here’s a primer on the who, what and why of the nominees vying for the big prize.

Luck by Joan Barfoot (Knopf Canada)

Plot: Nora, a successful sculptor, wakes up one morning to find her furniture-designer husband, Philip, dead beside her. The rest of the novel follows Nora and the rest of the household — Beth, a former model and Nora’s muse, and Sophie, the caretaker and financial manager — as they face the aftermath of Philip’s death.
Previous awards: Abra (1978) won the Books in Canada First Novel Award; Critical Injuries was shortlisted for the 2001 Trillium Book Award and longlisted for the 2002 Man Booker Prize.
What the critics say: “Luck is a sustained, sardonic satire on mortality. ... A black comedy that has a happy ending as temporary and random as luck itself.” (Independent on Sunday)
The odds: 3 to 1. Barfoot’s the veteran writer, a tried and true thoroughbred.

The Time In Between by David Bergen (McClelland & Stewart)

Plot: Charles, an American Vietnam veteran living in British Columbia, raises his three children alone following their mother's death. As they grow up and away from him, he retreats further into his memories of the war. A connection with a fellow vet leads him back to Vietnam in an attempt to make peace with his past.
Previous awards: A Year of Lesser (1996) won the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award; The Case of Lena S. (2002) won the Carol Shields Winnipeg Book Award and was a finalist for the Governor General’s Award for Fiction, the McNally Robinson Book of the Year Award and the Margaret Laurence Award for Fiction. Sitting Opposite My Brother (1993) was a finalist for the Manitoba Book of the Year.
What the critics say: “A beautifully composed, unflinching and harrowing story. Perhaps the best fiction yet to confront and comprehend the legacy of Vietnam.” (Kirkus Reviews)
The odds: 4 to 1. Being the only stallion among the nominees may hurt Bergen’s chances.

Sweetness in the Belly by Camilla Gibb (Doubleday Canada)

Plot: Set against the civil strife in Ethiopia and Margaret Thatcher’s England, Lilly, a white Muslim nurse, pines for Aziz, the black activist doctor she left behind when she fled Harar. Despite the courtship of a kind Indian doctor in London, Lilly has remained in a 17-year limbo between grief and the desperate hope she might see Aziz again.
Previous awards: Mouthing the Words won the City of Toronto Book Award in 2000 and Gibb picked up the CBC Canadian Literary Award for short fiction in 2001. An Orange Prize jury named her one of 21 “writers to watch for in the new century.”
What the critics say: “This complex tale about exile, romance and human rights combines the authority of Gibb’s scholarship on social anthropology with the lushness of her fictional vision.” (Elle Canada)
The odds: 3 to 1. Out of the gate, Gibb had big critical buzz; she and Barfoot are neck and neck.

Alligator by Lisa Moore (House of Anansi Press)

Plot: Moore’s debut novel is a North Atlantic gothic tale set in contemporary St. John’s revolving around the lives of a motley cast of characters: an aging artist, a recent immigrant, a woman in the throes of grief and a teenaged girl obsessed with alligators.
Previous awards: Moore’s short story collection Open was a finalist for the 2002 Giller Prize.
What the critics say: “Moore has a keen ear for both dialogue and a well-turned phrase, and the writing is suffused with a reckless joy that is at odds with the constricted nature of the stories being told. Careful attention to the nuances of individual voices and consciousnesses provides the book with immediacy and depth.” (Quill & Quire)
The odds: 5 to 1. Still a pony compared to her competitors, but the only second-time Giller nominee on the list. This longshot may win by a nose.

A Wall of Light by Edeet Ravel (Random House)

Plot: The final instalment in Ravel’s Tel Aviv trilogy tells the poignant, funny and wrenching story of three generations of an Israeli family. A Wall of Light follows math professor Sonya Vronsky as she finds love for the first time and uncovers some unexpected and life-changing family secrets.
Previous awards: Ten Thousand Lovers was a finalist for the 2003 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction and for the Amazon.ca/Books in Canada First Novel Award. It was also named a Globe and Mail Best Book of 2003 and one of Quill & Quire's top five Canadian novels of the year.
What the critics say: “Handling a tricky juxtaposition of disparate lives with grace and wit, Ravel shows her characters forging a country out of trauma.” (Kirkus Reviews)
The odds: 8 to 1. The true dark horse in this race.

Rachel Giese writes about the arts for CBC.ca.