Stuart Kelly: Early favourites have all been written off

Published on Tuesday 7 September 2010 14:11

The Booker, despite its august reputation, is not a predictable prize. This year, the judges chose not to put on the longlist a swathe of writers whom pundits had predicted would be shoe-ins.

No Ian McEwan (a former winner, and several times shortlisted), no D B C Pierre nor Yann Martel (both former winners, but neither in winning form), no Martin Amis, no Salman Rushdie, despite winning the Booker of Bookers.

The consensus was that, of the longlist, David Mitchell stood a very good chance indeed; having been twice shortlisted and having the enviable reputation of being the writer who brought cutting-edge writing to a mainstream audience, mostly thanks to his successes in the Richard and Judy Book Club. When the longlist was announced, Christos Tsolkias's The Slap caused a flurry of excitement among the cognoscenti: a big, bold novel with an ethical dilemma at its heart and a pleasing nimbus of controversy. The two were ahead of the pack in terms of sales. It was easy to find critics who were firm in their conviction that Rose Tremain or Helen Dunmore (both Orange Prize winners) would make it through.

In the end, none of them did, and the eventual winner will be difficult to call. There isn't a clear theme - 2009 was the year of the historical novel. There's a historical novel (Levy), a serious comedy of manners (Jacobson), a linked triptych of semi- fictional stories that might not be a novel (Galgut), a historical novel about things that didn't happen (Carey), a naturalist study of psychopathic crime (Donoghue) and a work of unashamed avant-garde sensibilities (McCarthy). Personally, I'd love to see Mc- Carthy get the prize: realistically, I think it may go to Donoghue.

• Stuart Kelly is books editor of Scotland on Sunday