Flaherty-Dunnan 2013 Short List

Awarded by the Center for Fiction, The Flaherty-Dunnan Prize recognizes the best first novel published in the previous year. Established in 2006 as the John Sargeant, Sr. First Novel Prize, it has for the past six years offered a barometer of the talented new writers beginning what we hope to be promising careers. Former winners include Marisha Pessl for Special Topics in Calamity Physics, who recently published the creepy mystery Night Film (watch for this in an upcoming Book Light!), and Benn Fountain for Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk. We don't know who has won yet, but we know the "short list," which turns out to be a pretty amazing reading list of current fiction.

Click through the links to place holds on any of these exemplary titles.

1. A Constellation of Vital Phenomena by Anthony Marra.

2. Eleven Days: A Novel by Lea Carpenter.

3. Ghana Must Go: A Novel by Taiye Selasi.
4. The Morels by Christopher Hacker.
5. Motherlunge by Kristin Scott.
6. The Residue Years by Mitchell S. Jackson.
7. Wash by Margaret Wrinkle.
8. Y: A Novel by Marjorie Celona.