The 2024 Booker Prize winner will be revealed on Tuesday evening. Paul Murray’s The Bee Sting and the eventual winner Prophet Song by Paul Lynch were on last year’s shortlist, ensuring a lot of Irish interest. While there is no Irish writer on this year’s shortlist, there is still a lot to savour.
Below, our critics give their thoughts on the six shortlisted novels. Why not vote in our poll on who you think will win.
The shortlisted novels
James by Percival Everett
A profound meditation on identity, belonging and the sacrifices we make to protect the ones we love, which reimagines Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
What The Irish Times said: By inverting Twain’s childlike depiction of Jim, Everett returns James to his rightful role of father figure to Huck. In taking back his name and narrative, he reclaims his dignity ... By recasting Twain’s flawed classic as a portrait of an enslaved man – in all the fullness of his courage, humanity and humour – Everett leaves a meaningful mark on American letters.
Orbital by Samantha Harvey
Six astronauts rotate in the International Space Station. They are there to do vital work, but slowly they begin to wonder: what is life without Earth? What is Earth without humanity?
What The Irish Times said: One analogue for the novel is not literary, but cinematic. It has the tenor of Terrence Malick’s late work, The Tree of Life and To the Wonder, where a collage of imagery scuppers any need for plot ... Just as in Harvey’s earlier novels, she is interested in particular modes of attention. How do we see the natural world? What is the cost of our view? Whether we choose to nurture the earth or let it fail, we must know it bears witness to our choice. Orbital is not only a timely meditation but an essential one. Her best novel to date.
Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner
A woman is caught in the crossfire between the past and the future in this part-spy novel, part-profound treatise on human history.
What The Irish Times said: Kushner swerves between profound wisdom, humour and glimpses of humanity’s path toward environmental disaster, making this novel both fun and devastating – and far more urgent than a typical spy thriller.
Held by Anne Michaels
In a narrative that spans four generations, moments of connection and consequence ignite and reignite as the century unfolds.
What The Irish Times said: What bonds the seemingly disparate episodes in the novel is the connective tissue of hope. Against the backdrop of epic world events and advances in technology and science, Michaels illuminates how the internal life of one person can transcend all external influence ... Michaels offers a profound literary experience that is executed with subtlety, grace and an exquisite intuition for the secret burning pulses of humanity that thrum beyond time.
The Safekeep by Yael van der Wouden
An exhilarating tale of twisted desire, histories and homes – and the legacy of one of the 20th century’s greatest tragedies.
What The Irish Times said: In this remarkable first novel, shortlisted for the 2024 Booker Prize, Yael van der Wouden plots the incremental shifts in the relationship between the two women locked into their own battles with pasts that have a rare capacity to wound ... The Safekeep is a beguiling love story told in a language that entertains and enthrals and never lets the duty to the truth get in the way of the pleasure of the writing. Or of the reading.
Stone Yard Devotional by Charlotte Wood
The past comes knocking in Charlotte Wood’s fearless exploration of forgiveness, grief and female friendship.
What The Irish Times said: With language less lapidary than those of her fellow shortlisted author Samantha Harvey or Claire Keegan, the simplicity of the sentences in Stone Yard Devotional brings to mind an unpolished stone ... With climate fiction usually imagining dystopian scenarios, Wood’s novel focuses on more ordinary existential grappling, including the ethics of retreating versus action as an antidote to despair.
