Review of The Hours author's latest book wins inaugural hatchet job awardpublished Tue, Feb 07 2012 16:02 GMT
Michael Cunningham's novel By Nightfall prompted 1,000-word demolition job in Observer by author and critic Adam Mars-JonesHis "killingly fair-minded and viciously funny" review of the Pulitzer prize-winning author Michael Cunningham's latest book, By Nightfall, has won novelist and critic Adam Mars-Jones the inaugural Hatchet Job of the Year award.Mars-Jones demolished the US writer's story of a middle-aged gallery owner attracted to his young brother-in-law in a 1,000-word review in the Observer last January. Beginning by ridiculing Cunningham's numerous bookish allusions – "nothing makes a novel seem more vulnerable, more naked, than an armour-plating of literary references. If you're constantly referring to landmarks, it doesn't make you look as if you're striding confidently forward" – Mars-Jones then mocks his artistic pretensions, ...
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