10 Novels Deemed Unworthy By the Pulitzer Board

In light of this week’s goofiness regarding the Pulitzer Board’s rejection of the Fiction Committee’s nominees, here are some other lovelies that previous Fiction Committees have nominated and which previous Pulitzer Boards have deemed unworthy just in the past twenty-two years:

• THE FEUD by Thomas Berger

• WHERE I’M CALLING FROM by Raymond Carver

• UNDERWORLD by Don DeLillo

• YOU ARE NOT A STRANGER HERE by Adam Haslett

• TREE OF SMOKE by Denis Johnson

• THE POISONWOOD BIBLE by Barbara Kingsolver

• SO LONG, SEE YOU TOMORROW by William Maxwell

• HOUSEKEEPING by Marilynne Robinson

• BIRDY by William Wharton

• JOHN HENRY DAYS by Colson Whitehead

—Joshua Corin