The longlist for the 2006 Miles Franklin Award will be announced tomorrow so I thought I might throw out a few suggestions for what might be on the list. Last year 43 novels were entered for the prize, with 12 making the longlist and five on the shortlist.
Possibilities:
Winter Journey by Diane Armstrong
Watershed by Fabienne Bayet-Charlton
The Garden Book by Brian Castro
Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee
The Patron Saint of Eels by Gregory Day
Grace by Robert Drewe
The Secret River by Kate Grenville
Surrender by Sonya Hartnett
Out of the Silence by Wendy James
Original Face by Nicholas Jose
Sandstone by Stephen Lacey
An Accidental Terrorist by Steven Lang
The Ballad of Desmond Kale by Roger MacDonald
Prochownik's Dream by Alex Miller
The Marsh Birds by Eva Sallis
The Broken Shore by Peter Temple
Everyman's Rules for Scientific Living by Carrie Tiffany
Affection by Ian Townsend
Dead Europe by Christos Tsiolkas
Road Story by Julienne van Loon
The Wing of Night by Brenda Walker
Which is a much longer list than I thought I'd end up with when I started this little exercise. There is always a bit of a problem chosing which books might appear on the shortlist due to the conditions of the award. In the past novels by authors such as Peter Carey have been deemed ineligible as they did not present an aspect of Australian life. It is also possible for non-Australian authors to be listed such as Matthew Kneale with his novel English Passengers. And let's not forget that Hannie Rayson was shortlisted for her play Life After George. As a consequence the following may, or may not, be deemed ineligible:
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
And the following are pretty much certain to be omitted:
March by Geraldine Brooks
The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers by Delia Falconer
The God of Spring by Arabella Edge
Do I think I've covered it all? No, not a chance. There is bound to be some novel that pops up, a debut perhaps, that will sneak in under the radar. And a good thing too.
