James McBride wins National Book Award
James McBride's The Good Lord Bird, the comic and terrifying adventures of a disguised black child caught up in John Brown's crusade, was the winner Wednesday night of the National Book Award for fiction.
NEW YORK - James McBride's The Good Lord Bird, the comic and terrifying adventures of a disguised black child caught up in John Brown's crusade, was the winner Wednesday night of the National Book Award for fiction.
George Packer's brutal examination of the modern class wars, The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America, won for nonfiction during a dinner ceremony in downtown Manhattan.
Cynthia Kadohata's The Thing About Luck won for young people's literature and Mary Szybist's Incardine won for poetry.
McBride, the picture of style in a tux and pork pie hat, said in his acceptance speech that in recent years his mother and niece had died and that his marriage had collapsed. He found consolation in his novel and its protagonist, a boy pretending to be a girl and nicknamed "Onion" by Brown, who recruited him for his attempt to free the slaves.
"It was always nice to have somebody whose world I could just fall into and just follow him around," said McBride, best known for his memoir, The Color of Water.
In an Inquirer review, Elizabeth Mosier called McBride's book a "riveting, risk-taking novel" that through satirical humor brings iconic figures such as John Brown and Harriet Tubman to life.
"McBride succeeds in deepening our understanding of historical events - and making us reflect on how we still harness pieces of oppressed cultures in order to save (or sell) ourselves," she wrote.
Packer, a writer for the New Yorker, praised some of the workers who allowed him to tell their stories. He said that he hoped his book would "illuminate some of what's gone wrong in America" in recent years" but also "some of what's gone right."
Kadohata, a winner in previous years of the prestigious Newbery Award for children's books, was honored Wednesday for her story of two children being cared for by their Japanese grandparents.
Szybist, who won for her collection of religious-themed poems, said that writing itself was an act of faith and self-discovery.
Winners, chosen by five-member panels of writers, booksellers, and others from the publishing community, each received $10,000.
Honorary medals were presented to Maya Angelou and E.L. Doctorow.