Our weekly edit
In the world of the Booker this week: Revisiting The Luminaries ten years on; we shine a spotlight on a hidden gem from the archives; and join us in celebrating our first Book of the Month
‘When I finished it, I felt immortal’: How Eleanor Catton wrote The Luminaries, winner of the 2013 Booker Prize
To mark the 10th anniversary of her Booker win, Eleanor Catton and her editor Max Porter discuss the book’s exhilarating journey towards publication and the prize
‘I took her to Nando’s,’ laughs Max Porter over Zoom. ‘She’d never been to Nando’s.’
The ‘she’ in question is 2013 Booker Prize winner, Eleanor Catton. The three of us are on call, discussing the aftermath of the ceremony that changed her fortunes as a writer, a decade after the fact. Porter, at the time, was her editor at Granta.
‘Nando’s at the Westfield in Shepherds Bush,’ she confirms. ‘I wasn’t a fan. I haven’t been again.’
In some ways, once you know the back story, a peri-peri chicken chain restaurant is the only place you can imagine the two friends ending up after scooping one of the best-known literary accolades in the Anglophone world. The book was not only Catton’s big break, it was Porter’s first outing as an editor, too. ‘We were so young,’ he marvels.
‘So scared,’ Catton corrects.
‘Terrified. We literally clung to each other, looking around like, Oh my god, there’s Ishiguro!’ Porter laughs. ‘But we were also very open-hearted. We had good intentions: we wanted to be in good conversation with other people about books. It was a joyful competition taking place all around in the air; all of us arguing furiously about the other books, their benefits and their weaknesses. And then to win it - we were gobsmacked.’
Now an 821-page bestseller, a BBC-adapted mini-series, and one of Queen Elizabeth II’s chosen Commonwealth novels for 2022’s ‘Big Jubilee Read’ to boot, Catton’s second novel, The Luminaries, has been described in many ways: as a historical novel, a ghost story, a crime thriller, an intricately plotted character study, and a staggering feat of formal technique. It opens on a wet night in gold-rush era 19th century New Zealand, where a cast of 12 men have gathered to conspire upon a series of strange events taking place around them. Two weeks prior, the town’s local drunk, Crosbie Wells, had been found dead in his cabin which contained an undisclosed fortune, as well as an unsigned deed allotting £2,000 from newly arrived prospector, Emery Staines, to a prostitute by the name of Anna Wetherell.
Wetherell herself was found that same night near dead in the street, with hundreds’ of pounds worth of gold sewn mysteriously into her dress. The first chapter of the novel is a retelling of one day which equally muddies and helps make sense of the link between these events from the differing perspectives of the 12 characters we meet initially - a Maori gemstone hunter, a banker, a hotelier, a whoremonger, a Chinese opium dealer, a merchant, a chemist, and so on. Each of these men’s actions and identity is governed by one of the 12 signs of the zodiac, while the characters whose circumstances they discuss are governed by planetary movements (Wetherell and Staines alternate as the Sun and Moon, for example). After 360 pages, in which the events of the day that led the men to gather acquire a whole, circular logic in the reader’s mind, the book gathers speed, with subsequent chapters charting the development of the book’s core mysteries halving in length.
In case you missed it: The Nick of Time by Francis King: an eye-opening, state of the nation novel by a hugely under-appreciated author
In a new monthly series, ‘TBR: The Booker Revisited’, Lucy Scholes shines a spotlight on hidden gems from the Booker Library. First, it’s ‘the most promising writer of his generation’, who was finally shortlisted, aged 80, for his 28th novel.
Join us as we launch The Booker Prizes’ Book of the Month
Late last year, we asked you, our readers, to choose some of your favourite titles from the archives. You answered in your hundreds, nominating acclaimed winners to forgotten gems that you adored from the 600+ books in the Booker Library.
After whittling down the list, we’re kicking off our first Booker Prize ‘Book of the Month’ - a month-long celebration of a book from the Booker Library - next week.
Each month we will focus on a different book from the archive, publishing exclusive features, reading guides, competitions and more. We’d love you all to join us in reading - or re-reading - each Book of the Month. Stay tuned as we reveal March’s novel here on Substack on Monday, March 6.
And finally…
In under two weeks’ time, the longlist for the International Booker Prize 2023 will be announced. The 12 or 13 works of fiction chosen by this year’s panel will be revealed on Tuesday, March 14 at 9am GMT.
What are your predictions for this year’s longlist? Tell us which books, authors and translators you’d like to see on the list for the 2023 prize in the comments.
Very cool! I’d be excited to see Dogs of Summer by Andrea Abreu and Paradais by Fernanda Melchor