It wasn’t the Shadow Giller Jury’s choice, and it was one of my least favorite on the Giller shortlist, but here’s this year’s winning book:
- Fifteen Dogs, by André Alexis
2015 Giller Prize Winner
It wasn’t the Shadow Giller Jury’s choice, and it was one of my least favorite on the Giller shortlist, but here’s this year’s winning book:
I recall Kimbofo’s far-from-thrilled review of this one. That convinced me not to bother. Can you see why they’ve picked it at all?
I actually gave each book on the Giller shortlist three stars on Goodreads because each was well written and interesting and even ambitious, but none were particularly memorable. When I had to spread them out and rank all five for the judging, I put Alexis at the very bottom because, though particularly well written that in and of itself did not elevate a dull, old premise: what if some animal were given intelligence? Would we see that humans are indeed animals? Etc.
I thought all of the others were much more interesting! I had hoped they would not pick it because they seemed willing to go with disturbing, challenging books like Martin John and Arvida, and both Outline and Daydream of Angels are just as well written as the rest and just as ambitious.
In short, no, I cannot quite see where Fifteen Dogs came from to win this thing.