Thin Error? Dispute Simmers Over Why Krakauer Denied Governor’S Award
Imagine that you’re invited to help judge a contest.
And let’s say you’re pleased to be asked. Not only because of the honor but because the contest requires you to do something that is already part of your everyday routine.
It requires you to read.
Specifically, to read a lot of books.
After meeting a couple of times with the other judges, taking off from your job, maybe even traveling across the state, you and your fellow jury members manage to cull a list of 10 winners out of 500 eligible works.
It’s been hard work, and you feel exhausted. But you’re satisfied.
Then you read the newspaper.
And just that quickly you see all your hard work get overshadowed by a burgeoning literary dispute.
This is what has happened to the five members of the 1998 Governor’s Writers Awards jury. On Sept. 1, the same day that the Washington State Library announced this year’s 10 winners, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer printed a story that questioned the jury’s selection process.
At issue: Left off the 1998 list was “Into Thin Air,” Jon Krakauer’s acclaimed non-fiction study of struggle and death on Mount Everest.
In his story, P-I reporter John Marshall revealed that this isn’t the first time an acclaimed national best-seller has been denied a Governor’s Writers Award. The jury for the 1995 awards declined to give an award to David Guterson’s novel “Snow Falling on Cedars.”
Both books, Marshall pointed out, had received much national acclaim. “Into Thin Air” had been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle award for nonfiction. “Snow Falling on Cedars” had won the prestigious PEN/Faulkner award for fiction.
Yet neither had been deemed worthy of a Washington state literary award. Certainly, went the reasoning, something was wrong.
“So significant are the omissions of Guterson and Krakauer’s books,” Marshall wrote, “that the nonprofit Washington Commission for the Humanities, which co-sponsors the Governor’s Writers Awards ceremony with the Washington State Library, is reconsidering its role.”
As of now, the commission - which has been involved with the awards since 1992 - has helped facilitate the jury process and acted as host for the annual awards ceremony (to be held this year on Oct. 25 in Seattle). Margaret Ann Bollmeier, executive director of the humanities commission, says the commission board now may want to “look at the way the awards are selected,” among other things.
“What has happened over the years is that the book awards have become known as the 10 best books of the year,” Bollmeier says. “That’s how people think of the award.”
Yet, she adds, “Nothing in the stated criteria says that that is what the award is for.”
Indeed, she says, “Our concern is that the jury isn’t necessarily looking for the 10 best.”
Before we start examining the “stated criteria” that Bollmeier is referring to, let’s review a bit of history.
The Governor’s Writers Awards were founded in 1966 during Gov. Dan Evans’ administration as part of the Governor’s Festival of the Arts. It was meant to honor Washington writers, a group that has increased in both size and prestige over the years.
In 1991, when I was finishing the second year of a two-year stint as a jury member, the number of books in contention barely reached 300. This year that number surpassed 500.
To be eligible for an award, writers must meet at least one of three stipulations:
They must be a Washington native.
They must have spent at least 10 of the first 18 years of his/her life in Washington.
Or they must be a current resident of Washington, having lived in the state for at least one year prior to publication.
The works themselves are required to meet less specific criteria: Jurors are told only that each must exhibit “overall quality of publication,” boast “literary merit” and exhibit “lasting importance.”
One final point: The award-winning books, all of which are housed in a permanent Washington Authors Collection at the state library in Olympia, are meant to be “10 outstanding books published during the previous year.”
This last designation, which is lifted directly from the state library’s literature, is the focus of the current dispute. Bollmeier says that “outstanding” is, or at least can be, far different from “best.”
“If the Governor’s Writers Award honors the 10 ‘best’ books of the year,” Bollmeier says, “and a writer from this state wins one of the most - if not the most - prestigious national book awards in the country and then is not given a Governor’s Writers Award, one would have to ask why not.”
Interestingly enough, at least one of this year’s jurors disagrees. According to Gary Schalliol, head of education of the Washington State Historical Society, the 1998 jury came up with a list that perfectly reflects the existing criteria - which says nothing about the necessary inclusion of national award-winners.
“It was never mentioned that this was a large concern of the Commission for the Humanities,” Schalliol says, adding that “If that is in fact the case, then that’s somewhat ludicrous.
“I could imagine Kurt Vonnegut having fun with the idea that if you could just manage to get that first award of the season, then you’re in for a whole series of awards, like a chain letter,” he says. “On your front lawn, there would be a whole pile of all other national awards because, after all, if it is nationally significant, I would presume that every other national award panel would want to give it their award, too. And, of course, any other sub-award, any state award, any regional award, any local award, they would automatically get those, too.”
Schalliol, who likes “Into Thin Air” - “It’s a good book, definitely,” he says - says criticism of the 1998 choices amounts to “some individuals bringing their own perceptions of what is of merit.”
“Margaret Ann is asking how that can be,” he says. “And I think that’s answerable. How that can be is individuals taking the criteria and their own experiences and things that they like and don’t like, applying those criteria and coming up with a different set of the top 10 than some other group of five people.”
Like Schalliol, another jury member, Konny Thompson - an acquisitions librarian at Gonzaga University’s Foley Library - stresses how difficult it was to pare the final list down from 50 to 10.
“That book received strong consideration,” Thompson says of “Into Thin Air.” “But when you have that many books, there are probably 40 more that you could have given an award to. And you just can’t.
“It’s very subjective,” she says. “And who knows? On another day, we might have come up with another list.”
If they had, Bill Youngs might not have been pleased. As a history professor at Eastern Washington University and one of this year’s winners for his book “The Fair and the Falls: Spokane’s Expo ‘74, Transforming an American Environment,” Youngs is accustomed to the subjective nature of publishing.
“My first book won the national award as the top manuscript in American religious history,” he says, “yet there were several presses that turned it down. Then the press that did accept it loved it. You do have different people, different tastes at different times. It’s not an exact science.”
Most of all, Youngs is irritated that the feeling of controversy has taken away from the books that did win.
“It seems to me that an article, instead of grousing about the one book that - though arguably a wonderful book - isn’t on there, should say something about the books that are,” Youngs says.
Aside from his own book, he adds, “I thought those other nine books deserved if not a full 15 seconds of fame at least one.”
One of Marshall’s arguments, one that Bollmeier also emphasized, was that the 1995 jury in particular had seemed to be less enthused with “Snow Falling on Cedars” precisely because it had enjoyed so much national attention.
This remains a disputed point. Shirley Lewis, a senior librarian at the state library, does say that recognition didn’t affect attitudes toward Krakauer’s book. Further, Lewis, who has been present for the past three awards adjudications, says that national fame isn’t typically considered one way or the other.
“Jurors don’t look at those books on the list and say, ‘OK now, which ones have gotten national recognition,”’ Lewis says. “Obviously, these people are aware, a number of them have heard of the books and some of them have even read them before becoming jurors. But that’s not where they start from.”
Starting points, of course, are not what earn attention. Only end points typically attract headlines.
Although not always.
In 1991, my second year as a juror, my fellow judges and I labored to choose that year’s 10 winners. When we were done, one book was conspicuous by its absence.
That was “Middle Passage,” a novel by University of Washington creative writing professor Charles Johnson and winner of the 1990 National Book Award.
Though we anticipated criticism, no one seemed to notice.
This year is obviously different. But maybe only Gary Schalliol can say just how different.
“If because of this controversy Jon Krakauer comes into my office and wounds me with an ice axe, then this will go national,” Schalliol says. “It will be huge. If he just sends me a nasty little letter, we’ve got hardly anything.”
Except, in the end, a bunch of outstanding books to read.
AWARD WINNERS LIST 1998 Governor’s Writers Award Winners “Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories” by Peter Bacho “The Measure of a Mountain: Beauty and Terror on Mount Rainier” by Bruce Barcott “The Ring of Truth: An Original Irish Tale” by Teresa Bateman “The Profile Makers: Poems” by Linda Bierds “Echoes of the Elders: The Stories and Paintings of Chief Lelooska” by Chief Lelooska “Darwin Among the Machines: The Evolution of Global Intelligence” by George B. Dyson “Summer for the Gods: The Scopes Trial and America’s Continuing Debate Over Science and Religion” by Edward J. Larson “Love Like Gumbo” by Nancy Rawles “Warren G. Magnuson and the Making of the Twentieth Century” by Shelby Scates “The Fair and the Falls: Spokane’s Expo ‘74, Transforming an American Environment” by J. William T. Youngs 1998 Nancy Blankenship Pryor Award: Glen Adams, owner of Ye Galleon Press