From Maggie O’Farrell to Edna O’Brien: Our pick of the Women’s Prize for Fiction 2020 longlist

The Women’s Prize for Fiction longlist is genuinely quite spectacular this year.

Irish authors are represented in force (Anne Enright, Maggie O’Farrell, Edna O’Brien), there are previous Man Booker winners vying for first place, and the list (as usual) is considerably more diverse than say, the nominee pools for both the Oscars and the Baftas, which is lovely to see.

In terms of who could clinch it when the winner is announced on June 3, Candice Carty-Williams’ brilliantly relevant Queenie has a very strong shout, and after having to share the Man Booker for Girl, Woman, Other, an outright win would be very deserving of Bernardine Evaristo. The chances are though, Hilary Mantel will once again prevail over awards season, this time with The Mirror And The Light, about the rise and fall of Thomas Cromwell.

However, here’s our pick of list…

Actress by Anne Enright

Actress is yet another typically luminous story from Irish author Anne Enright. Katherine O’Dell can hold a room emphatically, and is beloved by Ireland, Hollywood, and most of all, her daughter Norah. But fame can slip, loyalties shift, and guns go off, tipping everything off-kilter as they do. It’s written like a letter, from a mother to a daughter, and a wife almost absent-mindedly to a husband, but stretches also read like biography, and inevitably, obituary. You are pulled along by the truths that underscore the glamour of fame, but it’s done gently, soothingly, only for Enright to occasionally slam you with a moment, detail or feeling that shocks and hurts – even though often our narrator appears almost numb to things. She excavates her mother’s life (from appearing on stage, to IRA links and alcoholism), and her own in the process, producing a raw, tender portrayal of a woman undone by her work, and the men who control it.

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Maggie O’Farrell returns with an almost unbearably moving portrait of Hamnet, William Shakespeare’s son, who falls sick, tugging his whole family into a terrible, heart-rending vigil. But the book is also a portrait of a marriage, the struggles an independent woman can face (especially when she knows her way around herbs and healing), and the demands of family life on your freedom and vocation. O’Farrell gives Anne Hathaway, Hamnet’s mother, Shakespeare’s wife – who has been a somewhat mysterious figure in history – a shape and form that is both touching and provoking. This might just be O’Farrell’s best work to date.

Girl by Edna O’Brien

Girl, by Irish author Edna O’Brien, takes the young women and girls kidnapped by Nigeria’s Boko Haram terrorists as its subject, via narrator Maryam, who has managed to escape her attackers. Distressing and illuminating, O’Brien tackles this harrowing topic with force and empathy.

Fleishman Is in Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner

If you’re new to Taffy Brodesser-Akner, know that she is quite brilliant. Formerly at American GQ, she now writes major profiles for the New York Times Magazine. Fleishman Is In Trouble is her debut novel, and has all the wit, sharpness and perceptive intelligence of her magazine pieces, yet it is also intense, ferocious and gets inside you like you would not believe. Toby (a liver specialist) and Rachel (an incredibly successful talent agent) are in the midst of divorce, following many years of resentment, throwing stuff and hostility over money. Their kids – sweet, thoughtful Solly and exacting tween Hannah – are caught in the middle. And then Rachel goes missing. What ensues is no dark crime thriller, but a powerful examination of marriage, dating apps, suburbia, crushing ennui, parenthood and what happens when you feel as though who you are as a person has been stretched so thinly – by your family, lover, career, and the burden of fitting in – that suddenly, nothing makes sense anymore.

The Dutch House by Ann Patchett

This may just be the story of a family who live in a very particular house, but Ann Patchett weaves such a deft, thoughtful, heartrending portrayal of a building, and what it can do to its inhabitants, that it feels like so much more. The Dutch House spans the lives of siblings Danny and Maeve as they grow up in a house full of windows, so grand and incongruent with their small Pennsylvanian town, that it dominates their futures, forever tugging them back to the relationships that developed and foundered there. Narrated by Danny, it tracks back and forth through time, teasing at events as he analyses himself and his brilliant, mathematically-minded sister. It captures the feeling of loss perfectly, brutally – whether of a parent or a matchless window seat, but it does so without drowning in sentimentality. The plot is gentle but firm, while Patchett’s prose dazzles with detail and nuance, spinning a story that tucks itself inside your heart, so even long after finishing it, you take it out and turn it over in your mind.

The full Women’s prize longlist 2020:

Djinn Patrol on the Purple Line by Deepa Anappara
Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
Queenie by Candice Carty-Williams
Dominicana by Angie Cruz
Actress by Anne Enright
Girl, Woman, Other by Bernardine Evaristo
Nightingale Point by Luan Goldie
A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes
How We Disappeared by Jing-Jing Lee
The Most Fun We Ever Had by Claire Lombardo
The Mirror And The Light by Hilary Mantel
Girl by Edna O’Brien
Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell
Weather by Jenny Offill
The Dutch House by Ann Patchett
Red At The Bone by Jacqueline Woodson

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