NEW YORK (AP) 鈥 Alice McDermott's novel about military wives in Vietnam, 鈥淎bsolution,鈥 and the Jamel Brinkley story collection 鈥淲itness鈥 are among the finalists for the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction.
The other nominees announced Tuesday include Henry Hoke's 鈥淥pen Throat,鈥 the rare novel to be narrated by a mountain lion; Claire Jim茅nez's family drama-mystery, 鈥淲hat Happened to Ruthy Ramirez,鈥 and Colin Winnette's tech-saga, 鈥淯sers.鈥
鈥淲ith an astonishingly varied range of protagonists 鈥 the ghosts of New York City, U.S. military wives in wartime Saigon, Staten Island Latinas, a virtual reality designer, and a mountain lion living under the Hollywood sign 鈥 this year鈥檚 finalists offer definitive proof that fiction, to invoke Walt Whitman, contains multitudes,鈥 PEN/Faulkner Awards Committee Chair Louis Bayard said in a statement.
The winner, to be announced next month, receives $15,000. The runners-up each get $5,000. Previous winners include Philip Roth, Ann Patchett and Yiyun Li.
