The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson
v.
Building Stories by Chris Ware
The first semi-final round was judged by Davy
Rothbart who is the creator of Found Magazine and
author of a book of personal essays, My Heart Is an Idiot, and a
collection of stories, The Lone Surfer of Montana, Kansas.
He does have a connection to Chris Ware, they
were acquaintances for awhile though he hasn't seen him in 7 years.
He admits this at the beginning but it does make me slightly skeptical on how
you can judge without bias if you know or have known one of the
authors.
Unusually for this review, the
judge utilized his friends and booksellers, to help him decide so
I've included their comments in this review.
At first, I was, 'isn't that cheating?', but
then I realised, this is supposed to be about the best books of 2012 and who
better to judge that than all readers out there.
'How does The
Orphan Master’s Son stack up against Chris Ware’s Building
Stories?
To compare two books so
different in subject matter, style, and execution is a strange and difficult
undertaking. How was I to pick a winner between two books I deeply admired?
After swearing them to
absolute secrecy to preserve the sanctity of the Rooster, I shared my conundrum
with a few trusted advisers.
First, I decided to
consult some of my bookseller friends. The crucial, enduring role that indie
booksellers play in literary culture cannot be overstated. When I want to know
what book to read next, I turn to folks like Kevin Awakuni at Skylight
Books in Los Angeles; Kevin
Sampsell at Powell’s in Portland, Ore.; Ward Tefft at Chop
Suey Books in Richmond, Va.; Benn, Rachel, and Maggie at Atomic Books in
Baltimore; or any number of other
amazing booksellers who are equally passionate and knowledgeable about the
books they set out on their shelves.
And here are some of the comments he got back on
each book:
Paul Blaschko at Boswell
Books in Milwaukee:
'I
recommend Building Stories like a maniac when people come into the
store. My wife and I felt that we’d developed genuine relationships with the
characters. While this in itself is not too odd (this happens a lot to us with
fictitious characters), the odd part is that it felt like we were “meeting” and
“interacting” with them in such a true-to-life sort of way. It was like we’d
both met these people, and together, we were trying to piece together the
stories of their lives.'
Erin Haire of Hub
City Books in Spartanburg, SC:
'For me, this is no
contest. I loved, LOVED The Orphan Master’s Son. Like, I wanna be it for
Halloween. I thought that it was so original, it was a story that I had never
heard, and the author’s voice was so sure. The image that sticks with me is
from an early chapter, when the main character is sent on that fishing boat to
do radio surveillance. He describes how the fishermen butcher the fish onboard
and then dump the chum into the ocean. He describes how giant squid come up
from the depths to feed on this chum, and his description was just incredible.
I think Ware’s work is very cool and deserves props for quality and definitely
originality, but as far as actual literary achievement, The Orphan
Master’s Son is it for me.'
Isaac Fitzgerald,
managing editor of The Rumpus:
'The Orphan Master’s
Son was hands-down my favorite read of 2012. A fantastical love story
based in a horrifying reality. Reads like poetry, punches like a heavyweight.'
Hayley Imerman,
Toronto (in regard to Building Stories):
'beautiful and
heartbreaking.'
Steve Almond:
'After a week of sloppy
communion with Ware’s book, I'm ready to declare it one of the most important
pieces of art I have ever experienced.'
Dan Lewis, Minneapolis:
'When I go to sleep
after reading Chris Ware, my heart aches. Who hasn't slept alone and
longed for someone or slept with someone and longed to be alone? They say
people who lie convincingly to themselves are happier in the long run. I
believe Ware examines life and presents what it is like for those of us who
can’t or choose not to lie about reality.'
Davy's personal opinion on each book is that
Chris' 'interconnected stories are both exquisite and crushing'.
As for Orphan Master's
Son, he found the book 'terrifying, darkly funny, and vividly imagined—despite
its heaviness, I enjoyed Adam Johnson’s writing'.
This is how he, eventually, chose a winner
out of these two completely different books.
'At a loss for how to select a winner, I decided
to pick one favorite page from each book and read them over and over again to
see which I liked better, a kind of prose cage match.
From The Orphan Master’s Son, I picked
a page in which Jun Do scoops rotted toes from the empty boots of a dying
prisoner in a forced labor camp, unaware how close he is to undergoing a
similar fate—it’s an absolutely vivid, lacerating, hopeless passage that won’t
be easy to exile from my mind.
From Building Stories, I chose a gorgeous
spread in which the building that houses the book’s characters actually begins
to narrate for a moment:
'Who hasn’t tried, when passing by a building or
a home at night, to peer past half-closed shades and blinds hoping to catch a
glimpse into the private lives of its inhabitants? Anything… the briefest
blossom of movement… maybe a head, bobbing up… a bit of hair… a mysterious
shadow… or a flash of flesh… seems somehow more revealing than any generous
greeting or calculated cordiality (say, if the tenants were to suddenly be born
unto the porch and welcome the voyeur, hands increasingly outstretched) … the
disappointing diffusion of a sheer curtain can suggest the most colorful
bouquet of unspeakable secrets.'
This passage speaks so profoundly to our innate
curiosity about the people we share the world with, the natural voyeurism that
motivates us to read books in the first place, that it’s ultimately what has
won this bout for Chris Ware. The Orphan Master’s Son has masterfully
pulled back the curtain on life in North Korea—and, as Dennis Rodman’s recent
unexpected visit seems to indicate, we may soon begin to learn much more about
our planet’s most mysterious country—but Building Stories has pulled
a curtain back on what it means to be human.'
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