The National Book Award winner surprised nearly everyone

The New York Times has a great article about the woman who won The National Book Award for fiction. It begins: “Jaimy Gordon’s novel “Lord of Misrule,” which won the National Book Award for fiction last month, was such a long shot that even Ms. Gordon and her publisher, Bruce McPherson, didn’t think it had much of a chance. Ms. Gordon wore an old dress to the award ceremony and didn’t bother to prepare any remarks. On learning that the book had been selected as a finalist, Mr. McPherson, the owner and sole full-time employee of McPherson & Company, a tiny press in Kingston, N.Y., only reluctantly upped the print run to 8,000 copies, from 2,000. “Bruce said, ‘If I go to 8,000 I’m going to lose my embossed endpapers,’ ” Ms. Gordon said recently, shaking her head.

Read the whole article here.