New York Public Library Announces Finalists for 2002 Young Lions Fiction Award

$10,000 Prize Recognizes Work by Authors Age 35 or Younger

Actor Ethan Hawke, and Author Rick Moody Participate in March 20 Award Ceremony

New York City, February 14, 2002 -- A hippy folk dancer, a Digital Age John Henry, an orphaned Apache, and three obsessive celebrity hunters are among the richly imagined creations of the five talented newcomers who have been nominated as finalists for The New York Public Library’s 2002 Young Lions Fiction Award. The $10,000 prize, which is the only major writing award for American authors age 35 or younger, will be presented March 20 in a ceremony at The New York Public Library. The Young Lions is a membership group for Library supporters in their 20s and 30s. The fiction award is spearheaded by committee members Rick Moody, Ethan Hawke, and Jennifer Rudolph Walsh.

The five nominees for the this year’s Young Lions Fiction Award are: David Czuchlewski, The Muse Asylum (Putnam), Allegra Goodman, Paradise Park (The Dial Press/Random House), Peter Orner, Esther Stories (Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin) Brady Udall, The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint (Norton), and Colson Whitehead, John Henry Days (Doubleday) (see attached sheet for additional author and book information).

At the March 20 ceremony, Academy Award-nominated actor Ethan Hawke will read selections from the nominated books. The event will be held in the Celeste Bartos Forum at The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library at 42nd Street and Fifth Avenue. Writers Jonathan Lethem, Andrea Barrett, and Mark Danielewski are serving as judges for this year’s award. Danielewski won last year’s inaugural Young Lions Fiction Award for his novel, House of Leaves.

"It was a great honor to receive an award from the very library where I learned to read", Danielewski said. "Not only is the prize extremely generous, it is organized and run by avid readers and formidable writers who believe in and are committed to the cultural necessity of the written word. I know in the years ahead, it would be my pleasure as well as privilege to play some role in support of this very special award."

"It’s essential for writers in the early part of of their publishing lives to have opportunities for support and ratification," said Rick Moody, who in addition to his affiliation with the Young Lions is the acclaimed author of The Ice Storm and a recent short story collection, Demonology. "The Young Lions Fiction Award represents a significant and exciting source for this ratification. And it could come from no more important venue than The New York Public Library."

The Young Lions Fiction Award nominees were selected by a Reading Committee of Young Lions members, writers, and librarians, including Rodney Phillips, Director of The New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library. Nominations for the 2003 award are now being accepted. Award nomination guidelines and entry forms are available from the Library’s web site at www.nypl.org/admin/pro/ylaward.htm or by calling 212-930-0877. Submissions for books published in 2002 will be accepted through July 1, 2002.

For an annual contribution of $300, Young Lions members are invited to special events created for the group by the Young Lions Committee. Programs include panels, lectures, VIP exhibition openings, behind-the-scenes tours and the Young Lions Fiction Award. For more information on the Young Lions and upcoming events, please call 212-930-0670 or check the Library’s web site at https://www2.nypl.org/support/younglions.htm.

Contact: Herb Scher or Sabina Potaczek, 212-221-7676

(hscher@nypl.org, spotaczek@nypl.org)

 

2002 Young Lions Fiction Award Nominees

David Czuchlewski, (The Muse Asylum)

Putnam

In The Muse Asylum three recent college graduates become entangled by romantic and literary obsessions, centering around their search to uncover the identity of the great modern American writer Horace Jacob Little. Publishers Weekly called The Muse Asylum "a stylish, assured, and gripping work of fiction." David Czuchlewski graduated from Princeton University in 1998 and is currently a medical student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine.

Allegra Goodman, (Paradise Park)

Dial Press/Random House

Twenty-year old Sharon Spiegelman, a hippy folk dancer from Boston, is abandoned by her boyfriend and begins a tragicomic spiritual quest that spans twenty years. After each earnest pursuit of a new religious ideal or potential mate fails to fulfill her, she ultimately finds solace and love when she returns home to her Judaic roots. Allegra Goodman’s previous books include Kaaterskil Falls and The Family Markowitz. She is the recipient of a Whiting Award and the Salon magazine award for fiction. Goodman lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Peter Orner, (Esther Stories)

Mariner Books/Houghton Mifflin

Peter Orner’s first book is a collection of short stories that was widely praised for its tender writing. "His real subject is the human spirit in all its vexed yearning. Orner doesn’t simply bring his characters to life, he gives them souls," read a review in The New York Times Book Review. The first half of the book concerns the lives of unrelated strangers and the second introduces two Jewish families, one on the East Coast, the other in the Midwest. Peter Orner was born in Chicago in 1968. His stories have appeared in Atlantic Monthly, Southern Review, North American Review and other periodicals. One of his stories was selected for The Best American Stories 2001 anthology and another received a Pushcart Prize. Orner currently teaches at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Brady Udall, (The Miracle Life of Edgar Mint)

Norton

The trials of orphaned, half Apache Edgar Mint begin on an Arizona reservation at the age of seven when the mailman’s jeep accidentally runs over his head. Shunted from the hospital to a school for delinquents to a Mormon foster family, comedy, pain, and trouble accompany Edgar through a string of larger-than-life experiences. Through it all Edgar never truly loses heart and his quest for the mailman leads him to an unexpected home. Brady Udall, author of the highly praised Letting Loose the Hounds, teaches at Franklin and Marshall College in Pennsylvania.

Colson Whitehead, (John Henry Days)

Doubleday

The story of American folk hero John Henry, the legendary black railroad worker who beat a steam drill in a one-on-one contest and died in the act, is juxtaposed with that of J. Sutter, a young black journalist–a freeloading hack who roams from one publicity event to another abusing his expense account and mooching as much as possible. Drawing parallels between the lives of these two black men, and between the Industrial Age, which literally killed John Henry and the Digital Age, which is destroying Sutter’s soul, Whitehead adds multiple dimensions to the myth of the steel-driving man. Colson Whitehead was born in New York City. His first novel, The Intuitionist won the QPB New Voices Award and was an Ernest Hemingway/PEN Award finalist. He is also the recipient of a Whiting Writers’ Award. Whitehead lives in Brooklyn, New York.

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