Australian Peter Carey in line for Booker hat trick as shortlist is revealed

Published on Tuesday 7 September 2010 14:10

Australian author Peter Carey moved a step closer to achieving a literary hat trick with the announcement of his place on the shortlist for the Booker Prize, which he has already won twice.

While he and five other authors enjoyed their success there was disappointment for Alan Warner, the Scot whose novel The Stars in the Bright Sky was among those dropped as the candidates for the prestigious literary prize were cut down from a longlist of 12 to the shortlist of six.

Carey's novel Parrot and Olivier in America, an odyssey inspired by philosopher Alexis de Tocqueville, is one of six contenders for the 50,000 prize, which guarantees a glut of media attention and a big boost in sales.

The author took home Bookers in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang. He would be the first writer to win the prize three times, but is considered a long shot.

The early favourite, according to bookmaker William Hill, is British writer Tom McCarthy, whose wildly experimental novel C - the story of a technology-obssessed 20th-century Everyman - has drawn comparisons to James Joyce, and whom the bookies have anointed as the 2-1 favourite, while offering 5-1 odds on a Carey win.

However Ladrokes has chosen Irish writer Emma Donoghue as its favourite. Her novel Room is the story of a boy and his mother held captive in a garden shed. The book has drawn criticism from some who see parallels with the real-life case of Austrian Josef Fritzl, who kept his daughter locked in a basement for more than two decades.

Donoghue has said her book was "triggered", rather than inspired, by the Fritzl case.

The other finalists are In a Strange Room by South Africa's Damon Galgut, a previous Booker finalist; philosophical comedy The Finkler Question by Britain's Howard Jacobson; and Small Island author Andrea Levy's The Long Song, the story of a slave on a 19th-century Jamaican sugar plantation.

Yesterday former poet laureate Andrew Motion, who is chairing the judging panel, said the six books "demonstrate a rich variety of styles and themes - while in every case providing deep individual pleasures."

The winner will be announced at a ceremony in London on 12 October, and as always, the run-up always comes with reams of speculation and a flurry of bets.

Graham Sharpe of William Hill said gamblers placed 1 million in bets on literary prizes each year, with the Booker the most popular of these events.

The Booker is open to writers from Britain, Ireland or the Commonwealth and was founded in 1969. It is officially called the Man Booker Prize after its sponsor, financial services conglomerate Man Group.

The 2009 prize was awarded to Hilary Mantel for her historical novel Wolf Hall, which depicts Henry VIII's court through the eyes of Thomas Cromwell and which has sold more than 500,000 copies in the past year.

Each of the six shortlisted authors, including the winner, receives 2,500 and a designer- bound copy of their book.

The shortlist was whittled down from 138 titles.The runners, riders and bold outsiders

Peter Carey, Parrot and Olivier in America

IN TYPICALLY baroque style, Peter Carey introduces Olivier, a French aristocrat loosely based on Alexis de Tocqueville and Parrot, his manservant – who may possibly be spying on him – in the early days of the United States.

It was described as "Dickensian" by one reviewer, though others felt that the set-pieces, elaborate backstories and freewheeling plot didn't add up to more than the sum of its parts.

What we said: "Epic… an extravagant reworking."

Emma Donoghue, Room

The most controversial title on the shortlist, going from outsider to bookies' favourite by word-of-mouth enthusiasm.

Drawing inspiration from the Fritzl and Jaycee Lee Dugard cases, it is a kind of anti-crime novel. The unnamed female narrator lives with her son in an enclosed space: we know who did it, but what comes as a surprise is the effect their sudden escape into normality.

What we said: "A startlingly original and moving piece of work."

Howard Jacobson, The Finkler Question

The Finkler of Jacobson's 11th novel is a widower, bitter at his wife's early death from cancer.

He is also the object of envy for Julian Treslove, a former BBC arts producer and now celebrity lookalike, who is desperately jealous of his friend's Jewishness.

Typically comic, typically interested in the difference between lust and love, it's a novel with no pat answers.

What we said: "Exhilaration all the way"

Damon Galgut, In A Strange Room

As MUCH a travelogue as a novel, Galgut's book features three journeys, through India, Africa and Europe. The traveller, "Damon", is described in the third person, but slips into saying "I", giving a shimmering, uncertain quality to these poignant tales. Galgut's previous work was more political; this shows a poetic new direction.

What we said: "These stories are low-key and subtle. Galgut writes with a beautiful sense of the visible world"

Andrea Levy, The Long Song

Slavery is a topic many novelists have tackled, but few have managed to deal with it in a broadly comic fashion without ever diminishing the seriousness of the issue. Presented as the memoirs of July, the daughter of a Scottish overseer and a slave, it segues from historical crises to domestic farces, showing the real lives behind political upheavals.

What we said: "Complex characters, a lively story, gentle by incisive humour"

Tom McCarthy, C

The wild card of the shortlist. Serge Carrefax is born with the radio in 1898 and dies while helping build the pylons that will carry the BBC's signals in 1922. In between, McCarthy weaves an astonishing saga about technology, war, spiritualism, deafness, archaeology and incest: it's a carnival about how the modern came to be.

What we said: "A very good book indeed. McCarthy is one of the most talented novelists of our generation".