Jincy Willett: Winner Of The National Book Award: A Novel Of Fame, Honor, And Really Bad Weather

It takes chutzpah for a debut novelist to razz the literary world with a title like Winner Of The National Book Award, not so much because of its presumption of accolades to come, but because it sounds like the sort of post-whatever stunt that Neal Pollack is kicking himself for not having thought of first. As it happens, the title does have some practical reference, since the book is set in a notably illiterate Rhode Island town among a pocket of writers, including the author of the NBA-winning poetry collection Persephone's Grotto. The title also prepares readers for the ingenious structure, which pits two dueling narratives against each other–one a recently published tell-all about a self-empowering murderess, and the other a cantankerous attempt to set the record straight. But mainly, author Jincy Willett wants to establish the right tone: Read the title with a snort that echoes across the room, and proceed from there. Narrated by Dorcas Mather, a deeply sarcastic librarian who may double as Willett's alter ego, Winner does allow for a few nasty digs at supposed modern classics with hilariously weighty names such as Handleman's Jest and The Holocaust Imbroglio. According to Dorcas, these "monumental," life-changing achievements hailed by The New York Times are eventually unloaded at 50 cents apiece, "because no one has checked them out for four years." If Winner were anything less than the unnerving, scabrously funny, and disarmingly tender original that it is, then Willett would open herself up to someone else's toothmarks, but her confident, muscular prose immediately establishes her authority. In the prologue, Dorcas' library receives a dreaded copy of In The Driver's Seat: The Abigail Mather Story, a florid true-crime book about Dorcas' twin sister, penned by her haughty, self-appointed advocate Hilda DeVilbiss. Written without Dorcas' participation or approval, Driver's Seat tells the story of Abby's revenge against her evil, misogynist husband Conrad Lowe after years of physical, psychological, and sexual abuse. Hilda frames the murder as a feminist triumph, but Dorcas can barely get through a paragraph without venting her disapproval, because she understands her sister (and herself) with far more acuity. When Conrad, whose all-consuming hatred of women manifests in several graphic books and a stint as a gynecologist, comes to town, his presence forms a tragic axis between the sisters. His appetite for destruction immediately turns off Dorcas, a bitter spinster who forfeited her sexuality long before. But he finds a bottomless pit of self-loathing in the fleshy Abby, who was happily deflowered by the high-school football team at 14, and has since slept with virtually every man in town. Through Dorcas, Willett makes sense of the sexual masochism that fuels Abby's downward spiral, as well as the powerful bond between twins who have nothing else in common. And she's particularly good at reading the subtle barbs that are slipped into casual conversation, especially once Conrad arrives, with a breezy wit that strikes like a sledgehammer. His verbal showdowns with Dorcas have the zing of a classic screwball comedy, but as in the rest of Willett's spectacularly toxic novel, their words carry a severe undertow.