Annal:2008 Governor General's Literary Award for Fiction
From AwardAnnals
Results of the Governor General's Literary Award in the year 2008. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
The Origin of Species: A Novel
- 2008 Governor General's winner
- Score: 10.58
Montreal during the turbulent mid-1980’s: hiding out in a seedy apartment near the Concordia campus is Alex Fratarcangeli (“Don’t worry… I can’t even pronounce it myself”), a somewhat oafish 30-something grad student. Consumed by a floundering dissertation linking Darwin’s theory of evolution with the history of human narrative, Alex has come to view love and other human emotions as “evolutionary surplus, haphazard neural responses that nature had latched onto for its own insidious purposes.”
Then a convergence of brave souls enter Alex’s life, forcing him to recognize the possibility of meaningful connections. When he receives a letter from Ingrid, the beautiful woman he knew years ago in Sweden, notifying him of the existence of his five year old son, Alex is gripped by a paralytic terror.
Whenever Alex’s thoughts grow darkest, he is compelled to recall Desmond, the British professor who led him to some life-altering truths during their weeks exploring Darwin’s islands together. It is only now that Alex can begin to comprehend these unlikely life lessons, and see a glimmer of hope shining through what he had thought was meaninglessness.
Funny, poignant and visceral, Nino Ricci’s most recent masterpiece The Origin of Species will remind you of the wonder of life, the beauty of existence andthe great gift that is our connection to the universe and all that is.
Atmospheric Disturbances: A Novel
- 2008 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.58
When Dr. Leo Liebenstein’s wife disappears, she leaves behind a single, confounding clue: a woman who looks, talks, and behaves exactly like her—or almost exactly like her—and even audaciously claims to be her. While everyone else is fooled by this imposter, Leo knows better than to trust his senses in matters of the heart. Certain that the original Rema is alive and in hiding, Leo embarks on a quixotic journey to reclaim his lost love. With the help of his psychiatric patient Harvey—who believes himself to be a secret agent who can control the weather—Leo attempts to unravel the mystery of the spousal switch. From the streets of New York to the southernmost reaches of Patagonia, Leo’s erratic quest becomes a test of how far he is willing to take his struggle against the seemingly uncontestable truth he knows in his heart to be false.
This highly inventive debut explores the mysterious nature of human relationships, and how we spend our lives trying to weather the storms of our own making.
- 2008 Giller Prize shortlist
- 2008 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 12.58
One of the most highly anticipated novels of the year, Cockroach is as urgent, unsettling, and brilliant as Rawi Hage’s bestselling and critically acclaimed first book, De Niro’s Game. The novel takes place during one month of a bitterly cold winter in Montreal’s restless immigrant community, where a self-described “thief” has just tried but failed to commit suicide by hanging himself from a tree in a local park. Rescued against his will, the narrator is obliged to attend sessions with a well-intentioned but naïve therapist. This sets the story in motion, leading us back to the narrator’s violent childhood in a war-torn country, forward into his current life in the smoky émigré cafés where everyone has a tale, and out into the frozen night-time streets of Montreal, where the thief survives on the edge, imagining himself to be a cockroach invading the lives of the privileged, but willfully blind, citizens who surround him.
- 2008 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.58
The Great Karoo begins in 1899, as the British are trying to wrest control of the riches of South Africa from the Boers, the Dutch farmers who claimed the land. Frank Adams, a cowboy from Pincher Creek, joins the Canadian Mounted Rifles, along with other young men from the ranches and towns nearby—a mix of cowboys and mounted policeman, who, for whatever reason, feel a desire to fight for the Empire in this far-off war.
Against a landscape of extremes, Frank forms intense bonds with Ovide Smith, a French cowboy who proves to be a reluctant soldier, and Jefferson Davis, the nephew of a prominent Blood Indian chief, who is determined to prove himself in a “white man’s war.” As the young Canadians engage in battle with an entrenched and wily enemy, they are forced to realize the bounds of their own loyalty and courage, and confront the arrogance and indifference of those who have led them into conflict.
The Great Karoo is a deeply satisfying novel, marked by the complexities of its plot, the subtleties of its relationships, and the scale of its terrain. Exhilarating and gruesome by turns, it explores with passion and insight the lasting warmth of friendship and the legacy of devastation occasioned by war.
The Lost Highway: A Novel
- 2008 Governor General's finalists
- Score: 6.58
For twenty years, Alex Chapman—a worn out academic and failed priest—has been at war with his great-uncle James, a man known in his small-town community as “The Tyrant.“ Embittered and disillusioned, Alex believes that James is responsible for his harsh childhood, for the loss of his one true love, and ultimately, for the unfortunate direction his life has taken. So when Alex runs into the slow-witted local auto mechanic who claims he has just given James Chapman a winning lottery ticket worth thirteen million dollars, Alex sees his chance for revenge and plots to steal the ticket away from his aging uncle.
Thus begins an emotionally shattering story of a family’s deep-seated grudges and dangerous passions, all set around a lonely, country road where rival provinces have converged for years. A chilling exploration of what happens when our moral questions become matters of life and death, The Lost Highway is a page-turning tale of small-town jealousy and corruption.
