'American Elsewhere' wins Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel

The winners of the 2013 Shirley Jackson Awards were announced on Sunday in Burlington, Mass. and “American Elsewhere” by Robert Jackson Bennett received top honors for Best Novel. The awards were presented during Readercon 25.

For those of you unfamiliar with the relatively new Shirley Jackson Awards, they are given each year to recognize “outstanding achievement in the literature of psychological suspense, horror and the dark fantastic” from works published in the preceding calendar year. The winners are chosen by a panel of award advisors, critics, editors, scholars and writers. Awards are given in six categories – Novel, Novella, Novelette, Short Fiction, Single-Author Collection and Edited Anthology.

The Shirley Jackson Awards are named after the late Shirley Jackson, who died at the age of 48 in 1965. An influential author and novelist, Jackson is best remembered for her short story, “The Lottery,” and her 1959 horror novel, “The Haunting of Hill House.” Her other novels include “The Road Through the Wall” (1948), “Hangsaman” (1951), “The Bird’s Nest” (1954), “The Sundial” (1958) and “We Have Always Lived in the Castle” (1962).

The complete list of this year’s winners in the three “book categories” are as follows:

NOVEL:

Winner – “American Elsewhere” by Robert Jackson Bennett

Finalists:
- “The Accursed” by Joyce Carol Oates

- “The Demonologist” by Andrew Pyper

- “The Ghost Bride” by Yangsze Choo

- “Night Film” by Marisha Pessl

- “Wild Fell” by Michael Rowe

SINGLE-AUTHOR COLLECTION:

Winner – (Tie) “Before and Afterlives” by Christopher Barzak and “North American Lake Monsters” by Nathan Ballingrud

Finalists:
- “Everything You Need” by Michael Marshall Smith

- “In Search of and Others” by Will Ludwigsen

- “The Story Until Now” by Kit Reed

EDITED ANTHOLOGY:

Winner – “Grimscribe’s Puppets,” edited by Joseph S. Pulver Sr.

Finalists:

- “The Book of the Dead,” edited by Jared Shurin

- “End of the Road” by Jonathan Oliver

- “Queen Victoria’s Book of Spells: An Anthology of Gaslamp Fantasy,” edited by Ellen Datlow

- “Where thy Dark Eye Glances: Queering Edgar Allan Poe,” edited by Steve Berman

The first Shirley Jackson Awards were presented in July 2007. The Shirley Jackson Award for Best Novel is arguably the most prestigious of all the Shirley Jackson Awards and a number of outstanding novels have received this award over the years. What follows is a complete list of the all-time winners in that category.

2007 – “Generation Loss” by Elizabeth Hand
2008 – “The Shadow Year” by Jeffrey Ford
2009 – “Big Machine” by Victor LaValle
2010 – “Mr. Shivers” by Robert Jackson Bennett
2011 – “Witches on the Road Tonight” by Sheri Holman
2012 – “Edge” by Koji Suzuki

2013 – “American Elsewhere” by Robert Jackson Bennett

For more information about the Shirley Jackson Awards, including information on the winners in the other categories this year, visit http://www.shirleyjacksonawards.org/.

In the end, how many of the books mentioned above have you had the chance to read? Which did you like or dislike? Why? Which would you recommend and why? Let us know in the comments section below.