Changing My Mind pt. 2 NBA Longlist

In which we look at the other five books on the 2016 NBA Longlist.

Hi, Y’all! Glad You’re Here—

Last week, I wrote about changing my mind regarding my opinion of the 2016 National Book Award Fiction longlist. I’d held onto my first impression of that list without ever really taking it into further consideration, but after last week, I realized that it is one of the strongest lists in the last decade. The judging panel that year had one of the most exciting line-ups, including Jesmyn Ward and Julie Otsuka, and I think their passion for new and exciting literature shows in their choices. While many of the books listed had flown under the radar before the list dropped, they were all deserving choices. None of them felt like picks made just to shake things up. In last week’s post, I covered the five books that made the short list, and today, I wanted to take a look at the other five books from the longlist, which included: What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell, The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie, Imagine Me Gone by Adam Haslett, Sweet Lamb of Heaven by Lydia Millet, and Miss Jane by Brad Watson.

The first book from the longlist I picked up was What Belongs To You by Garth Greenwell. I remember this book being situated as that year’s A Little Life—the “gay” book of the longlist. While we’ve seen a major shift in queer representation over the last few years, there was a period of time where it seemed like there was just a single explicitly queer story making the list each year, with books like A Little Life and The Great Believers making the biggest waves. To call What Belongs To You the A Little Life of the 2016 awards cycle does a disservice to the book, I think, because it’s hardly at all like the book it’s compared to. Just in size alone, Greenwell’s novel is a sliver of a thing, a tiny jewel of a novel, not as interested in trauma as it is lust and language. Greenwell is a poet, and line by line, he’s challenging the reader to meet him in his elevation. When reading Greenwell, I’m reminded of the nickname people gave Nabokov when referring to his work—art monster. In that way, if we were to have a Nabokov of our times, maybe Greenwell is it.

What Belongs To You is a book that captures that weird connection between shame and desire that has been so pervasive within the queer community. So much of our history has been tied to hiding, to shame, and the inability to truly exist outside of the shadows. What Greenwell does here is both expose the ways queer people, specifically gay men, figure out the ways to exist within the margins, to accept that sometimes, the only thing you can have is the quick physical heat and that be enough. The second half of the book exposes where this comes from, locating the shame and following it towards the reclaiming of desire. It’s well done, though I’m not sure enough readers—including myself—picked up on some of this on our first read.

I ended up loving What Belongs To You, and Greenwell’s follow up, Cleanness. If the National Book Award is looking for the best written book by a U.S. writer, Greenwell truly is one of our best writers now. I think this listing was highly deserved.

The next book I read was Miss Jane by Brad Watson. This book actually came to me as a birthday gift from one Annie B. Jones, only a few weeks before it was announced for this longlist. Watson was actually on a previous longlist, for his novel The Heaven of Mercury, a slightly darker (though still humorous) southern gothic tale with a little Faulknerian influence. Miss Jane is less gothic, more naturalistic, and a quieter novel all around, though no less striking. Watson writes about the body and about nature in such beautiful, strange, profound ways, and I think that for a book to truly make us feel like we’re seeing these things for the first time is no small feat. His main character, Jane, lives with a disability that means she cannot bear children or have sex, and I think he handles this so thoughtfully and with such tenderness. One thing about Watson’s writing I have always loved is that even though he wrote about so many experiences outside of his own, he always held on to the humanity of these characters, and he never looks down on them, he never felt sorry for them, but respected them equally. I just found that to be a beautiful thing.

I loved Watson’s work—he passed away back in 2020, and even though I only had the briefest of interactions with him, he seemed so kind, and I was heartbroken to think we would never see more of his work enter the world. Both of his novels were more than deserving of making this list. I’m glad they did. If for no other reason than to keep his name in the public consciousness for a little longer.

Not long after I finished that quiet, beautiful book, I moved onto something entirely different with Lydia Millet’s Sweet Lamb of Heaven. If you’ve followed me for some time, you’ll know I have an obsession with Millet, and this is where the obsession began. Sweet Lamb of Heaven, in the beginning, almost made me think of Rosemary’s Baby. Despite this being a very weird, brainy, literary work, it’s also very suspenseful, and I remember holing myself up in a friend’s bathroom, avoiding the responsibility I had given myself of helping her pack for a move, because I had started the book before I’d left the house and couldn’t stop thinking about where the book was going to go. I finished the entire book while balanced on the lip of my friend’s guest tub, and while I had no idea what this book was actually saying, I had no regrets. All I wanted to do was find the smartest person I knew and make them read it, so we could discuss.

Millet was longlisted for her follow up, A Children’s Bible, and I’ve since read several other of her works, and I think that she’s someone who, the more you read, the more you understand. Going back to Sweet Lamb of Heaven these years later, with more of her work under my belt and more knowledge from just existing in the world, I do think I get what she’s doing here. I can’t help but marvel at her tight prose, her breakneck pacing, her respect for the reader—she’s a genius, I’m convinced.

The fourth book from the longlist was one I actually read while sick with the flu, The Portable Veblen by Elizabeth McKenzie. I remember seeing this bright, poppy cover with a squirrel on it and thinking, “This book made the longlist?” At the time, I was convinced that only "serious” books could make the list. I mentioned this last week, but several of these books from this longlist were actually very funny, including this one. This romcom of sorts follows an engaged couple as they meet each others families and realize how much is left to figure out about the other person. This book is so charming and so lovable, and yes, there is a squirrel that the lead, Veblen, talks to, and why wouldn’t she?! The book is well written and finds ways to dodge the usual tropes of the genre, and I think it does such a great job of entertaining and being this charming, lovely book while also exploring some greater themes just under the readers nose. It’s one that I think could’ve been easily overlooked if not for the great readers of this year’s judging panel.

Also, my having the flu had nothing to do with my opinion of the book—just to be clear.

The last book on this list is actually one I didn’t read until I was writing this newsletter. I can’t say why, other than I just didn’t get around to it. It’s Adam Hassett’s Imagine Me Gone. Both this novel and his short story collection before it were not only longlisted for the NBA, but were also finalists for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It’s interesting to read Imagine Me Gone now, at the height of these conversations regarding the “trauma plot”, with these many stories using a persons traumatic backstory to explain away a character and their actions. Haslett, whose novel explores themes around mental health and inherited trauma, resists this temptation in his work. The book never dismisses a characters actions but confronts them in really interesting ways.

Another thing that I noticed about this book is that Haslett truly took to the idea of showing versus telling—this is one of the few books I’ve read that feels like I’m seeing everything happen, seeing it all play out, nothing really feels “told”, and I don’t think there’s actually anything wrong with a book utilizing both things, but I just found this really interesting as an observation. It makes the writing stand apart from everything else on this list, how he approaches it. Which makes sense as to why the book was highlighted by two prestigious awards.

I ended up really enjoying this one, though it’s the only one I haven’t had time to fully digest yet and consider in ways that I have the others. Maybe I’ll have more concrete thoughts come in the next week or two.

When looking back at the longlist, I admire these quiet, beautifully written works. I’ve made this comparison before, about how these literary awards kind of mirror the Oscars at times—you have the big, showy, Anne Hathaway performance that wins over Helen Hunt…but it’s possible that Hunt’s performance was just as good, but was overlooked due to its quiet nature. I feel like we could make that argument for any of these books and why they didn't make it to the shortlist. But either way, I’m just glad that they got the much deserved recognition of being highlighted by this award. This judging panel really did know what they were doing.

I’m so glad I ended up writing about this longlist now, so I could remind myself of how great these books were, to remind myself to take the time to appreciate the quiet novels, because those will stay with us just as much as the big showy books—sometimes they’ll stay with us even more.

If you have any thoughts on the books from this longlist, I would love to discuss!! I’m so thankful to have this platform to discuss these things with y’all, to share in my growth and discovery as a reader. What a joy it is.

Who knows what’s in store for next week’s newsletter—I’m reading a bunch and trying to catch up, so stay tuned to see what we discuss!

Until then,

XOXO