The Booker Goes Ballistic

Literary snobs get their knickers in a twist over the inclusion of Belinda Bauer's excellent novel, Snap in the Booker longlist

'It’s hard to understand how the Man Booker judges could have deemed Snap to be of sufficient depth or imagination to merit its inclusion.'   The New Statesman


Well how about the fact that the book is quite astounding, elicits multiple emotions in the reader and that the child characters in the book are as real as any in fiction. Is that enough of a reason for inclusion in your special longlist?

'Putting a crime novel in for a prize would be like entering a donkey in the Grand National,' former Booker judge, John Sutherland said back in 2010, and there lies the problem. Booker,it seems, only favours plot-less books featuring damaged characters in an existential crisis.

The New Statesman review of Snap is needlessly critical - the book explores trauma through the eyes of Jack Bright, eleven years old at the start of the narrative, and his siblings, one little more than a baby in arms. This character has to survive in a brutal reality and he doesn't have time for an inner crisis, existential or otherwise.  It's a darker than dark story, but the characters are so well realized that there are some incredibly humorous scenes that spring from these characters. And yet all the Statesman review seems to suggest is that the descriptions of a pregnant character is patronizing to women. Um, er - OK if they say so.

It's these same people who bemoan the fact that young people don't read anymore, and yet when something exciting comes along, something that can actually compete with video games, big budget movies - well, surely this is the way to go.

'If it’s tokenism, I don’t care, because it does so much not only for crime writers but for readers in general, because now hopefully some of them will be open to reading a different kind of book. So many writers from other genres are jumping on the crime bandwagon, and I think it’s starting to find its place again, with people who love to read a good book and don’t care what it is. It’s just about marketing, and I wish people would understand that and pick up some good stuff and read it.”    Belinda Bauer talking to The Times about her novel's inclusion in the Booker longlist.

Bauer's received some flak from literary minded keyboard warriors on Twitter since the announcement of the longlisting, but she doesn't care, and is taking it all in her stride.

In a few weeks the shortlist will be announced and the Archive is keeping its fingers crossed that Belinda will make it to the final six titles - that'll cause the literary snobs to take note. They'll be so shocked that their pullovers may slip from their shoulders - the over the shoulder jumper look  just makes you look like a twat, anyway.

Regardless of the prize or not, Belinda is certainly shaking things up in the literary world. It's as if she's become a  literary version of Johnny Rotten, a keyboard bound Sex Pistol. Anarchy in the book store.

Read the book and decide for yourself, the Archive says.

Snap by Belinda Bauer is available now.

Once all the madness is over The Tainted Archive will be running an interview with Belinda Bauer herself, so keep reading folks.