Debut novelist Madeline Miller wins 2012 Orange Prize

“A more than worthy winner – original, passionate, inventive and uplifting. Homer would be proud of her.”

Those were the words of Joanna Trollope, chair of the 2012 Orange Prize for Fiction judges, last night when she announced this year’s winner – Madeline Miller.

American writer and Latin teacher Miller won the £30,000 prize for The Song of Achilles, the debut novel she spent ten years working on. A captivating, lyrical book, it takes the legendary love affair of Achilles and his best friend Patroclus and brings it alive for a 21^st century audience. It’s a sparkling novel that, as Trollope remarked, will appeal to readers of all ages. And not only that, it undoubtedly fulfils the Orange Prize criteria of excellence, originality and accessibility.

When Trollope announced the six shortlisted novels for the award back in March, she referred to their “remarkable quality and variety.” I’ve read all of them now and she’s right. The judges apparently spent three hours deliberating on who should win and it was only at midnight on Monday that they finally came to their decision.

I loved Miller’s novel but if I’m honest I loved two of the other contenders more - The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright and State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. I first came across Enright’s book when it was Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime and her smooth, elegant prose stopped me in my tracks. The novel chronicles a love affair that wrecks two Dublin marriages and is a stunning read.

Meanwhile Patchett’s book is the compelling story of a doctor sent to the Amazonian jungle to investigate the death of a colleague. An intoxicating blend of cutting-edge science and the closely guarded secrets of the rainforest’s remotest tribes, it’s a magnificent read by a writer at the height of her powers.

It will be interesting to follow the next chapter in the award’s history. This is the final year of Orange’s sponsorship of the prize (co-founder Kate Mosse hopes to announce a new sponsor later this summer) so it will have a new name next year. But one thing’s for sure. If this year’s stellar shortlist is anything to go by, women writers are a force to be reckoned with right now.

The other three novels shortlisted for the Orange Prize were Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding, Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan and Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick.

Orange Prize for Fiction 2012 shortlist announced at the London Book Fair

Two ultra-distinguished writers welcomed guests to the announcement of the 2012 Orange Prize shortlist at the London Book Fair yesterday morning. First up was Kate Mosse, author of the phenomenally successful Labyrinth and co-founder of the prize, who was wearing the grooviest black lace-up platform shoes I’ve seen in a long time. Then came Joanna Trollope, who’s written 17 bestselling novels and is this year’s chair of the Orange Prize judges, tall and elegant in a pink jacket and black jeans.

It was a rainy morning in Earl’s Court, with commuters queuing under dripping umbrellas to get into the book fair. But once we were inside the PEN literary café and sipping copious cups of coffee, the excitement about the shortlist was palpable.

Announcing this year’s shortlist, Trollope paid tribute to the judging panel of Lisa Appignanesi, Victoria Derbyshire, Natalie Haynes and Natasha Kaplinsky. She described the judging process as “very amicable” and noted the “incredible quality of submissions.” The Orange Prize celebrates excellence, originality and accessibility in women’s writing throughout the world, but she said that she would add another element this year – “distinction.”

“This is a shortlist of remarkable quality and variety,” she said. “It includes six distinctive voices and subjects, four nationalities and an age range of close on half a century. It is a privilege to present it. My only regret is that the rules of the prize don't permit a longer shortlist. However, I am confident that the fourteen novels we had to leave out will make their own well-deserved way.”

The six shortlisted books for the Orange Prize for Fiction, now in its 17^th year, are:

Half Blood Blues by Esi Edugyan

The Forgotten Waltz by Anne Enright

Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding

The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

Foreign Bodies by Cynthia Ozick

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

This year’s shortlist includes both new and well-established authors, including debut novelist Madeline Miller (can she emulate last year’s winner, Téa Obreht, who won the prize with The Tiger’s Wife, her first novel) and previous winner Ann Patchett, who scooped the Orange Prize in 2002 with Bel Canto.

The award ceremony takes place in London on May 30, so to quote Trollope from yesterday: “Go forth and enjoy six perfectly astonishingly good books.” I’ve only read one of them so far, so I can’t wait to get cracking.

PS. If you have a flair for writing and dream of becoming a novelist, buy this week’s Grazia. The magazine has teamed up with the Orange Prize for Fiction to find a new star female writer. Rosamund Lupton, author of Sister and Afterwards, has written the opening paragraph of a new story called The Journey. All you have to do is complete the first chapter in 800 to 1,000 words…

The flower market at Columbia Road

The flower market in London’s Columbia Road has been on my “must visit” list for years. Every Sunday the narrow street in the heart of the East End is filled with stalls selling everything from hyacinths to narcissi to ten-foot banana trees. I knew it would be exactly my sort of thing.

Reading Joanna Trollope’s Daughters-in-Law a couple of weeks back reminded me it was high time I got my act together and went. In the book, graphic designer Luke lives in a flat “at the very top of a tall and elaborate brick building in Arnold Circus, a stone's throw… from Columbia Road flower market, from Brick Lane, from – oh my God – Hoxton.”

So this weekend, with my husband in the Far East and my son whizzing down an Italian mountainside on a snowboard (scary), I reckoned I had the perfect opportunity. Luckily my student daughter lives just round the corner and she sweetly agreed to come with me. Actually, her favourite clubs, bars and “the best bagel shop in the world” are in that neck of the woods so she didn’t take much persuading.

Sure enough, Columbia Road is everything it’s cracked up to be. Open from eight am till “three-ish” every Sunday, the place is alive with stallholders yelling “three bunches for ten pounds,” shoppers of all ages clutching flowers wrapped in brown paper and 20-somethings dressed in tweedy, old-fashioned outfits that look straight out of a Dickens novel.

Along with the flower stalls, the Columbia Road shops (open on Sundays) are pretty top-notch too. Between the pair of us we bought cards from Ryantown (artist Rob Ryan’s shop), homemade cakes from a delightfully-named bakery and gift shop called Treacle and two gold buttons from Beyond Fabrics for my daughter’s coat.

From there it was just a brisk walk (it was blooming cold) round to Brick Lane. Famed for its curry houses and vintage shops, the place was as busy as Oxford Street in the pre-Christmas rush. Street artists sat sketching, visitors queued up to buy curries and bagles (tucking in appreciatively as they walked down the street) and old and young alike played chess and a game called Carrom (apparently a cross between draughts and billiards) at outdoor board tables. Hmmm. Curry, flowers and board games – what better way to spend a Sunday afternoon?

Images: Columbia Road (top), Arnold Circus (above)

Friday book review - The Soldier's Wife by Joanna Trollope

After failing to be 100 per cent convinced by Joanna Trollope’s Daughters-in-Law, I decided to give her latest novel a go this week. The Soldier’s Wife certainly sounded promising. It’s the story of a mother-of-three whose army major husband has just returned home after a six-month tour of duty in Afghanistan.

While her husband was away Alexa Riley did everything – looked after their three-year-old twins, coped with the boarding school misery of her teenage daughter, cooked, cleaned, mowed the lawn, serviced the boiler and got offered a prestigious teaching job. But far from being the blissful homecoming she expects, her husband Dan seems unable to adjust to family life again. As Alexa observes:  “He’s back, but he’s not back, not in any sense that’s any use to me or his family. And if one more person tells me just to give him time, or that I knew what I was taking on, or that I’m so lucky to have the security, I will just… kill them.”

Trollope has clearly researched army life meticulously. Indeed, as I mentioned last week, an army wife interviewed by Jenni Murray on BBC Radio 4's Woman’s Hour said she’s got every single detail right in the book.

I don’t know much about modern army life but my father was in the RAF when I was little and lots of Trollope’s observations resonated with me. The married quarters painted in magnolia, the formality of the officers’ mess, the constant moving house (between the ages of five and eleven I went to six schools) and the dilemma of how army wives can keep their own careers going when they’re never in one place for more than two years. Some women put up with it – as a brigadier’s wife says in the book “you just adapt your skills and career ambitions to the Army” – but a growing number of wives, Alexa among them, are starting to question the frequent upheavals.

With military wives (and the brilliant Military Wives choir) very much in the news these days, Joanna Trollope has cleverly captured the zeitgeist in her latest novel. A far more substantial and satisfying read than some of her most recent books, it gives a moving snapshot of what life as an army wife is really like. Warts and all.

The Soldier’s Wife by Joanna Trollope (Doubleday, £18.99)

Friday book review - Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope

The first Joanna Trollope book I ever read was The Rector’s Wife. I was so captivated by her 90s tale of a vicar’s wife who shocks everyone by taking a job at a supermarket to make ends meet that I was desperate to read her earlier books. The instant I’d finished that one I rushed out to buy another, feverishly working my way through her backlist in the way I used to gobble up Enid Blyton stories as a child.

But in recent years I haven’t found her books quite so gripping. She’s as prolific as ever – Daughters-in-Law, her 16th Trollope novel, came out in paperback last month while her 17th, The Soldier’s Wife, is published in hardback this week. I’ve clearly got a bit of catching up to do because I’ve only just read Daughters-in-Law and while I found it enjoyable enough I wasn’t bowled over by it.

In theory Daughters-in-Law sounds exactly my cup of tea. It’s the story of Rachel, the mother of three grown-up sons. She’s devoted her life to bringing them up in an idyllic-sounding house near the Suffolk coast. But now the trio have their own lives to lead. The three sons, Edward, Ralph and Luke, have all married and two of them have children of their own. Suddenly Rachel isn’t at the heart of everything, as she once was, and she clearly doesn’t like it. As she tells her endlessly patient husband Anthony: “…nobody wants me to do something I’m good at any more.”

The trouble is that I didn’t care enough about any of these characters. Rachel isn’t exactly the mother-in-law from hell, but she’s blooming annoying, with a tendency to feel sorry for herself when things don’t go her way. Ralph, her middle son, doesn’t know whether he wants to be a city slicker or to drop out and live by the sea, and as for his hippyish wife Petra, well I didn't find her believable at all. I also had a problem with Trollope’s dialogue. It’s full of wise observations, articulately expressed, but everyone sounds exactly the same. If I closed my eyes and listened to it, I’d be hard-pressed to work out who was speaking.

But despite my reservations I’m still keen to read The Soldier’s Wife. It focuses on the lives of army families and sounds a far more substantial read. An army wife interviewed on Woman’s Hour this week glowingly said that Trollope had got every single detail right. Praise indeed.


Daughters-in-Law by Joanna Trollope (Black Swan, £7.99)