Annal:1970 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Man Booker Prize in the year 1970. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- 1970 Booker winner
- Score: 10.2
Norman is the clever one in a close-knit Jewish family in the East End of London. Infant prodigy, brilliant barrister, the apple of his parents’ eye… until, at forty-one, he becomes a drug addict, confined to his bedroom, at the mercy of his hallucinations and paranoia. For Norman, his committal to a mental hospital represents the ultimate act of betrayal. For Rabbi Zweck, Norman’s father, his son’s deterioration is a bitter reminder of his own guilt and failure. Only Bella, the unmarried sister, can reach across the abyss of pain to bring father and son the…
- 1970 Booker shortlist
- Score: 6.2
Marise Tomelty is a child-wife who dislikes sex and is terrified of open spaces. Ralph Shilling, a dealer in pesticides, lives in the flat above the Tomeltys’. One day, Marise’s traveling-salesman husband casually mentions that he recognizes Ralph as John Brown, the suspect who, for lack of evidence, was acquitted in an actrocious double murder. Nevertheless, Marise encourages Ralph’s attentions, intoxicated by a heady mix of passion and fear.
In this shrewdly-observed novel, A. L. Barker explores the tug between body and soul, life and death, truth and fantasy.
- 1970 Booker shortlist
- Score: 6.2
Eva Trout, Elizabeth Bowen’s last novel, epitomizes her bold exploration of the territory between the comedy of manners and cutting social commentary.
Orphaned at a young age, Eva has found a home of sorts in Worcestershire with her former schoolteacher, Iseult Arbles, and Iseult’s husband, Eric. From a safe distance in London, her legal guardian, Constantine, assumes that all’s well. But Eva’s flighty, romantic nature hasn’t entirely clicked with the Arbles household, and Eva is plotting to escape. When she sets out to hock her Jaguar and disappear…
- 1970 Booker shortlist
- Score: 6.2
Bruno is nearly ninety. Obsessed with his past and a passion for spiders, he is the centre of a complex web of relationships involving his estranged son Miles; Danby, his hapless son-in-law; Danby’s mistress, Adelaide; and her twin cousins, the vengeful Will and the mischievous, sinister Nigel.
