“The most beautiful thing we can experience
is the mysterious. It is the source
of all true art and science.”

—Albert Einstein

VCU Cabell First Novelist Award

Winners

Eleventh Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2012:
Justin Torres for We the Animals (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

We the Animals

Three brothers grapple with their chaotic, destructive home life as they race toward adulthood. Their mother, a Causasian woman, works the night shift at a brewery. Their father, who has a Puerto Rican background, does odd jobs. Surrounded by domestic battles and broken dreams, the brothers know that they want something different, something more fulfilling, but will any of them escape the whirlwind?

Christopher Isherwood of The New York Times described the novel as relating “an affecting story of love, loss and the irreversible trauma that a single event can bring to a family.” In his Esquire review, author Benjamin Percy proclaimed, “Torres’s sentences are gymnastic, leaping and twirling, but never fancy for the sake of fancy, always justified by the ferocity and heartbreak and hunger and slap-happy euphoria of these three boys.”

Justin Torres grew up in upstate New York. His work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, Tin House, Glimmer Train, and other publications. A graduate of the Iowa Writers’ Workshop, he is a recipient of the Rolón United States Artist Fellowship in Literature, and is now a Wallace Stegner Fellow at Stanford. He has worked as a farmhand, a dog-walker, a creative writing teacher, and a bookseller.

Judges: David Gordon (author of The Serialist and winner of the 2011 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award), Tama Janowitz (best-selling author of Slaves of New York and others), and Maya Payne Smart (writer and chair of James River Writers)

Finalists: A Young Man’s Guide to Late Capitalism by Peter Mountford (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) and Touch by Alexi Zenter (W.W. Norton)

Explore Past Winners

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award has honored a varied group of books and writers. The novels’ settings have ranged from Africa to Moscow, small-town USA to the Wild West; the protagonists have covered the spectrum from rebellious youth to gritty adulthood. The authors, too, have varied widely in background and even in age, certainly in voice.

Proof that there is no single formula for good writing: Art just happens.

 

2002 Winner

Maribeth Fischer
for The Language
of Good-bye

2003 Winner

Isabel Zuber
for Salt

2004 Winner

Michael Byers
for Long for This
World

2005 Winner

Lorraine Adams
for Harbor

2006 Winner

Karen Fisher
for A Sudden
Country

2007 Winner

Peter Orner
for The Second
Coming of Mavala
Shikongo

2008 Winner

Travis Holland
for The Archivist’s
Story

2009 Winner

Deb Olin Unferth
for Vacation

2010 Winner

Victor Lodato
for Mathilda Savitch

2011 Winner

David Gordon
for The Serialist

Tenth Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2011:
David Gordon for The Serialist (Simon & Schuster)

The Serialist

Harry Bloch is a struggling writer (a self-proclaimed hack) who grinds out pulpy serial novels—from vampire books to detective stories—under assorted pseudonyms. His life begins to imitate his fiction when he agrees to ghostwrite the memoir of Darian Clay, New York City’s infamous Photo Killer. Soon three young women turn up dead, each one murdered in the Photo Killer’s gruesome signature style. With the help of a self-appointed manager still wearing the plaid skirts of high school, and working with a sister of one of the original victims, Harry plays detective in a real-life murder plot full of twists and deconstructive bricolage as he tries to avoid becoming the next victim—or the next convicted killer.

In the Los Angeles Times, reviewer Owen Hill called this “A killer debut . . . funny, with a satirical edge.” David Ebershoff, author of The 19th Wife and The Danish Girl, sums up Gordon’s achievement: “The Serialist is a book about many things but above all it’s about storytelling—why and how we tell stories to stay not only sane but also alive. David Gordon writes with style, bite, suspense, humor, and heart. Remember his name. The Serialist is great fun to read and the beginning of a noteworthy career.”

David Gordon was born in Queens and lives in New York City, with stops in New Jersey, London, and Los Angeles. He attended Sarah Lawrence College and holds an MA in English and comparative literature and an MFA in fiction writing, both from Columbia University. He has also worked in film, fashion, publishing, and several fictional genres.

Judges: Tim Hulsey (Dean of the VCU Honors College), Victor Lodato (author of Mathilda Savitch and winner of the 2010 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award), and Marcela Valdes (critic and books editor for The Washington Examiner)

Finalists: The Bells by Richard Harvell (Broadway Books) and The Girl Who Fell from the Sky by Heidi Durrow (Algonquin)

Ninth Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2010:
Victor Lodato for Mathilda Savitch (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

past first novelist winner

Mathilda Savitch

Fear doesn’t come naturally to Mathilda Savitch. She prefers to look right at the things nobody else can bear to mention: for example, the fact that her beloved older sister was pushed in front of a train by a man still on the loose. Her grief-stricken parents have basically been sleepwalking ever since, and it is Mathilda’s sworn mission to shock them back to life. Her strategy? Being bad.

“Part off-beat coming-of-age story and part suspense novel . . . Lodato skillfully, and often rather poetically, navigates the minefield of growing up” (Boston Globe).

Mathilda Savitch has been translated into eight languages and published in eleven countries. A poet, playwright, and novelist, Victor Lodato is the recipient of Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, as well as the Weissberger Award for his play “Motherhouse.” He divides his time between Tucson and New York.

Judges: Lev Grossman (critic and author of The Magicians), Brian Henry (professor of creative writing at University of Richmond and poet), and Deb Olin Unferth (author of Vacation and recipient of the 2009 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award)

Finalists: The Invisible Mountain by Carolina De Robertis (Alfred A. Knopf) and Lake Overturn by Vestal McIntyre (HarperCollins)

Eighth Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2009:
Deb Olin Unferth for Vacation (McSweeney's)

past first novelist winner

Vacation

A man follows his wife. The wife follows a stranger. The stranger leaves town and the man goes after him, determined to settle the score. But the man is not the only one looking for the stranger, and the stranger has troubles of his own. Amid all this, the earth quakes; a boy leaps out of window; and a dolphin swims free. With deadpan humor and skewed wordplay, Deb Olin Unferth weaves a mystery of hope and heartbreak.

“Unferth writes like a musician plays . . . The whole novel should be read aloud and relished” (Aimee Bender).

Deb Olin Unferth has also published a memoir, Revolution: The Year I Fell in Love and Went to Join the War (Henry Holt, 2011). She has received two Pushcart Prizes and was selected by Harper&rdsuo;s Bazaar as an Editor’s Choice: Names to Know in 2011. She teaches creative writing at Wesleyan University.

Judges: Andrew Blossom (editor of Richmond Noir), Travis Holland (author of The Archivist’s Story and recipient of the 2008 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award), and Peter Orner (author of The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo and recipient of the 2007 VCU First Novelist Award)

Finalists: Famous Suicides of the Japanese Empire by David Mura (Coffee House Press) and Where the Line Bleeds by Jesmyn Ward (Agate Bolden)

Seventh Annual VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, 2008:
Travis Holland for The Archivist’s Story (The Dial Press)

past first novelist winner

The Archivist's Story

Moscow, 1939: In the recesses of the infamous Lubyanka Prison, a young archivist is sent to authenticate an unsigned story confiscated from one of the many political prisoners there. The writer is Isaac Babel. The great author is spending his last days forbidden to write, his final manuscripts consigned to the archivist, Pavel Dubrov, who will ultimately be charged with destroying them. The emotional jolt of meeting Babel face-to-face leads to a reckless decision: Pavel will save the last stories of the author he reveres, whatever the cost.

“The quiet authenticity about Holland’s writing draw you in, and soon you will find yourself sitting on the edge of your seat . . . [H]eartbreaking and haunting work” (Library Journal).

A graduate of the University of Michigan, where he received his MFA, Travis Holland lives in Ann Arbor. His work has appeared in Ploughshares, Glimmer Train, and Five Points.

Judges: Valley Haggard (writer for Style Weekly), Ann McMillan (author of Chicahominy Fever: A Civil War Mystery), and John Ulmschneider (University Librarian, VCU)

Finalists: Samedi the Deafness by Jesse Ball (Vintage Contemporaries) and Quinnehtukqut by Joshua Harmon (Starcherone Books)

Sixth Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2007:
Peter Orner for The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo (Little, Brown & Co.)

past first novelist winner

The Second Coming
of Mavala Shikongo

When Mavala Shikongo deserted them, the teachers at the boys’ school in Goas weren’t surprised. She was too beautiful, too powerful, and too mysterious for their tiny, remote, and arid world. They knew only one essential fact about her: She was a combat veteran of Namibia’s brutal war for independence from South Africa. When Mavala returns to Goas with her baby son, all are awed by her boldness. The teachers try hard, once again, not to fall in love with her. They fail, immediately and miserably, especially the American volunteer, Larry Koplanski.

“With this staggering debut novel, Orner has joined the first rank of American writers” (The Boston Globe). 

Peter Orner earned a law degree from Northeastern University and an MFA from the University of Iowa. He is the author of a collection, Esther Stories (Houghton Mifflin, 2001), and an editor of two anthologies of narrated life stories. His honors include the Rome Prize in Literature, a Lannan Literary Fellowship, and a Guggenheim Fellowship.  His second novel, Love and Shame and Love, will be published in November 2011 by Little, Brown & Co. A long-time faculty member at San Francisco State University, he is currently a visiting professor at the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa.

Judges: Karen Fisher (author of A Sudden Country and recipient of the 2006 VCU First Novelist Award), David L. Robbins (author of Broken Jewel), and Ward Teft (owner of Chop Suey Books, Richmond, VA)

Finalists: Justin Tussing for The Best People in the World (HarperCollins), Marie Arana for Cellophane (The Dial Press), and Peter C. Brown for The Fugitive Wife (W.W. Norton)

Fifth Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2006:
Karen Fisher for A Sudden Country (Random House)

past first novelist winner

A Sudden Country

On an arduous and dangerous journey west to Oregon in 1846, Lucy Mitchell persuades her husband to hire frontiersman James MacLaren, convinced that he’s the key to her family’s safe passage. As their hidden stories and obsessions unfold, and pasts and cultures collide, both Lucy and MacLaren must confront the people they have truly been, are, and may become.

“A first-time novelist turns her own family’s past into a vigorous, deeply moving work of historical fiction . . . Elegantly written and powerfully original: a magnificent story and a remarkable debut” (Kirkus Reviews). 

Winner of the Sherwood Anderson Fiction Award and a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner, Spur, and the Los Angeles Times First Fiction Awards, Karen Fisher has worked as a teacher, wrangler, farmer, and carpenter, and she lives with her husband and their three children on an island in the Puget Sound. She is working on her second novel.

Judges: Lorraine Adams (author of Harbor and recipient of the 2005 VCU First Novelist Award), Sharon Arms Doucet (author of Why Lapin’s Ears Are Long), and Ron Hogan (author of The Stewardess Is Flying the Plane! and publisher of the literary website Beatrice)

Fourth Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2005:
Lorraine Adams for Harbor (Alfred A. Knopf)

past first novelist winner

Harbor

“This debut novel by a Pulitzer-winning journalist tells the story of Aziz Arkoun, a twenty-four-year-old Arab Muslim from Algeria who enters America illegally by hiding for fifty-two days in the hold of a tanker and swims into Boston Harbor . . . Hopes for prosperity and safety are dashed: Aziz takes low-paying jobs, is beset by chaotic living conditions, and . . . gets caught up in the FBI investigation of an international terrorist cell. Adams displays a gift for detail and character that take us fully inside the complex system of survival, kinship, and religious ideology which form Aziz’s world” (The New Yorker).

Harbor was a New York Times and Washington Post Notable Book, also selected as Entertainment Weekly’s Fiction Book of the Year.

Lorraine Adams was educated at Princeton University and Columbia University. She was a staff writer for The Washington Post for eleven years and won a Pulitzer Prize for investigative reporting. In 2010, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship and published her second novel, The Room and the Chair, with Alfred A. Knopf.

Judges: John Beckman (author of The Winter Zoo), Michael Byers (author of Long for This World and recipient of the 2004 VCU First Novelist Award), and Jann Malone (writer for The Richmond Times-Dispatch)

Third Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2004:
Michael Byers for Long for This World (Houghton Mifflin)

past first novelist winner

Long For This World

“Altruism allies with greed in this novel set in Seattle, Washington . . . Henry Moss, a medical researcher, discovers a genetic anomaly that promises a treatment for a rare syndrome and implies a major breakthrough in the study of the aging process . . . [S]olid plotting, lovingly developed characters, and thoughtful exploration of social and cultural issues” (Booklist).

Michael Byers received his MFA from the University of Michigan and was a Stegner fellow at Stanford University. His story collection, The Coast of Good Intentions (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), won the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the Academy of American Arts and Letters. Byers was also the recipient of a Whiting Foundation Writer’s Award and a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Foundation Award, and his stories have been selected for The Best American Short Stories, 1997 and The O. Henry Awards: Prize Stories, 2010. Byers’s second novel, Percival’s Planet, was published in 2010 by Henry Holt.

Judges: Colleen Curran (author of Whores on the Hill), Harry Kollatz, Jr. (writer for Richmond Magazine), and Isabel Zuber (author of Salt and recipient of the 2003 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award)

Second Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2003:
Isabel Zuber for Salt (Picador)

past first novelist winner

Salt

A bright, imaginative child exulting in a rare freedom in the mountains of North Carolina at the turn of the twentieth century, Anna Maud Stockton Bayley grows into a young woman possessed of romantic yearnings and a great love of books. Hungering to make a new kind of life for herself, she marries John Bayley, a man twice divorced, and begins a family amid a difficult and fiery union.

“[A] beautifully conceived and gracefully executed first novel . . . The lyric cadences of Zuber’s prose and her tender evocation of the landscape and atmosphere of her native region have much to do with the emotional richness of her touching account of one woman’s inner awakening” (Publishers Weekly).

Isabel Zuber was born and grew up in Boone, North Carolina. She graduated from Appalachian State University and received a master’s degree from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. She has published three collections of poetry: Oriflamb (NC Writers Network, 1987), Winter’s Exile (Scot’s Plain Press, 1997), and Red Lily (Press 53, 2010). She now lives in Winston-Salem, where she was a librarian at Wake Forest University for many years.

First Annual VCU First Novelist Award, 2002:
Maribeth Fischer for The Language of Good-bye (Plume)

past first novelist winner

The Language of Good-bye

How do you relinquish the past so that you may successfully start over without losing a sense of who you have become? ESL teacher Annie Helverson is trying to build a new relationship after the end of her long marriage while her students struggle to survive and prosper in a sometimes inhospitable country.

“[An] excellent novel of real people and strong emotions” (Booklist).

Maribeth Fischer has taught fiction and nonfiction, as well as writing for healthcare professionals and for caretakers and parents of children with disabilities. She founded the Rehoboth Beach Writers’ Guild of Delaware and has served as executive director of the annual Writers at the Beach: Pure Sea Glass writing conference. Her second novel, The Life You Longed For, was published in 2007 by Simon & Schuster and translated into five languages.