The City of Vancouver Book Award was announced last week. Just four finalists. And they failed to decide! The prize was split between Jean Barman for Stanley Park's Secret and James Delgado for Waterfront.
I don't know either book, but these are both good historians and good writers. I salute them for the good books they have given us. Nice to see history dominate an award designed to salute books "in any genre" about the city.
But what’s with this tie? The jury should have faced up to its responsibilities and chosen a winner. Even if it had to flip a coin. Choosing two winners from four books devalues both winners. T'aint a horse race till one horse wins.
And how cheap is this? Not only did Vancouver split the prize, it split the prize money. When the jury wimped out a few years ago and announced a tie for the Giller Prize in fiction, at least Jack Rabinovitch had the grace to write two big cheques.
Equally dismaying: Governor-General's Award fiction juror Leon Rooke's recent comments about the GG shortlist in fiction. The jury agreed on the four best books, he said, but they had a hard time finding a fifth book to tack on at the end of the short list.
But if four books clearly stood out above the rest, the jury should have rejected padding the list, dropped the also-ran, and gone with the four best. They are rewarding excellence, not doing book promotion. Writers don't benefit from this pandering. Make up your minds and go with the good ones, jurors.
