And then there were three.
Freedom is a Feast by Alejandro Puyana, How to Read a Book by Monica Wood, and skin & bones by Renée Watson are the finalists for the 2024 Westport Prize for Literature, awarded annually to honor an original work of fiction that explores issues in contemporary society.
This year’s winner will be announced in August and honored at The Westport Library on Saturday, September 21, in conjunction with StoryFest, the Library’s annual literary festival. The recipient will also sit on one of the panels during StoryFest, whose lineup of confirmed authors includes Roxane Gay, Christopher Golden, Joe R. Lansdale, Claire Messud, Peng Shepherd, and many more. (The list of 40+ attending authors is available on the StoryFest website.)
Submissions for the 2024 Westport Prize for Literature were read and vetted by a team of Westport-based volunteer readers — numbering nearly 50 for this year — with the best-reviewed manuscripts advancing to the jury, who will select this year’s winner.
“The community response to this project has been fantastic!” said Candice Savin, chair of the Westport Prize for Literature steering committee. “Our core group of volunteer readers dug into the submitted novels with enthusiasm and a love of literature emblematic of Westport. I know everyone involved with this project is looking forward to seeing the winner at the Library on September 21.”
The jurors for 2024 include book blogger and aggregator Suzanne Leopold, publishing industry veteran Erica Melnichok, The Lifeboat author Charlotte Rogan, and nonfiction writer and former Book of the Month Club judge Nina Sankovitch.
This is the second year for the prize, whose inaugural grant of $10,000 was awarded last year to renowned novelist Zadie Smith for The Fraud, which was named as one of the best books of the year by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New Yorker, and The Independent, among others.
L to R: Alejandro Puyana, Renée Watson, and Monica Wood
About the Finalists
Freedom is a Feast by Alejandro Puyana
In 1964, Stanislavo, a zealous young man devoted to his ideals, turns his back on his privilege to join the leftist movement in the jungles of Venezuela. There, as he trains, he meets Emiliana, a nurse and fellow revolutionary. Though their intense connection seems to be love at first sight, their romance is upended by a decision with consequences that will echo down through the generations. Almost 40 years later, in a poor barrio of Caracas, María, a single mother, ekes out a precarious existence as a housekeeper, pouring her love into Eloy, her young son. Her devotion will not be enough, however, to keep them from disaster. On the eve of the attempted coup against President Chávez, Eloy is wounded by a stray bullet, fracturing her world. Amid the chaos at the hospital, María encounters Stanislavo, now a newspaper editor. Even as the country itself is convulsed by waves of unrest, this twist of fate forces a belated reckoning for Stanislavo, who may yet earn a chance to atone for old missteps before it’s too late.
With its epic scope, gripping narrative, and unflinching intimacy, Freedom Is a Feast announces a major new talent. Puyana has delivered a wise and moving debut about sticking to one’s beliefs at the expense of pain and chaos, about the way others can suffer for our misdeeds even when we have the best of intentions, and about the possibility for redemption when love persists across time.
How to Read a Book by Monica Wood
Violet Powell, a 22-year-old from rural Abbott Falls, Maine, is being released from prison after serving 22 months for a drunk-driving crash that killed a local kindergarten teacher. Harriet Larson, a retired English teacher who runs the prison book club, is facing the unsettling prospect of an empty nest. Frank Daigle, a retired machinist, hasn’t yet come to grips with the complications of his marriage to the woman Violet killed. When the three encounter each other one morning in a bookstore in Portland — Violet to buy the novel she was reading in the prison book club before her release, Harriet to choose the next title for the women who remain, and Frank to dispatch his duties as the store handyman — their lives begin to intersect in transformative ways.
How to Read a Book is an unsparingly honest and profoundly hopeful story about letting go of guilt, seizing second chances, and the power of books to change our lives. With the heart, wit, grace, and depth of understanding that has characterized her work, Wood illuminates the decisions that define a life and the kindnesses that make life worth living.
skin & bones by Renée Watson
At 40, Lena Baker is at a steady and stable moment in life — between wine nights with her two best friends and her wedding just weeks away, she’s happy in love and in friendship until a confession on her wedding day shifts her world. Unmoored and grieving a major loss, Lena finds herself trying to teach her daughter self-love while struggling to do so herself. Lena questions everything she’s learned about dating, friendship, and motherhood, and through it all, she works tirelessly to bring the oft-forgotten Black history of Oregon to the masses, sidestepping her well-meaning co-workers that don’t understand that their good intentions are often offensive and hurtful.
Through Watson’s poetic voice, skin & bones is a stirring exploration of who society makes space for and is ultimately a story of heartbreak and healing.
About the Jury
Suzanne Leopold
Leopold is the creator of SuzyApproved.com, her website for sharing book reviews. Her platform is active across many social media platforms including Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, where she has accumulated more than 10,000 followers. She is also the founder of SuzyApprovedBookTours.com where she aggregates her community of bloggers across social media platforms to support authors with book launches.
Erica Melnichok
As an 18-year veteran of the publishing industry from Penguin Random House, Melnichok has worked with hundreds of authors and facilitated literary events nationwide. Most recently, she has embarked on a public library career and is a member of the American Library Association. Melnichok has long championed the voices of authors while supporting the goal of libraries to connect books with readers. She firmly believes in the power of books to connect and transform us.
Charlotte Rogan
Rogan is the author of The Lifeboat, which was nominated for The Guardian first book award, the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and the Goldsboro Books and Historical Writers Association debut historical fiction prize. It has been translated into 26 languages and was included on Huffington Post’s 2015 list of “21 books from the last 5 years that every woman should read.” Her second novel, Now and Again, continues to explore issues of morality and justice.
Nina Sankovitch
Sankovitch is the author of four books of nonfiction, including Tolstoy and the Purple Chair and American Rebels, and has a fifth book coming out in 2024. She is both a former lawyer and a former judge for the Book of the Month Club.
