For the third year in a row, we’ve submitted our Believer magazine postcard, casting our vote for the three “…most affecting and well-wrought, the bravest and the best written” works of fiction published in the US in the previous year. After last year’s faceless-woman postcard contest, suggested by readers’ spontaneous, unsolicited art work on previous years’ cards, the Believer has changed postcards; this year’s card attempts to cover an art work that seems a bit cluttered for the small-sized card. We added some spontaneous art to the backside. In any case, here are our picks for 2009:
The Halfway House, by Guillermos Rosales. The underclass at work. Introduction by Jose Manuel Prieto, translated from Spanish by Anna Kushner, in a New Directions Paperbook Original: $14.95 (121 pages).
The Skating Rink, by Roberto Bolano. Writer as detective at work. Translated from Spanish by Chris Andrews. Another New Directions book: $21.95 (hardback, 182 pages).
The Anthologist, by Nicholson Baker. Poet at work. Simon & Schuster: $25.00 (243 pages).
All three available at Multnomah County Library.
The Coming of the Toads 