The Booker Prize, awarded in England, used to be limited to authors of the British persuasion, including authors from Commonwealth countries all over the world. Now, it’s open to U.S. authors, too, and five of the twelve authors on the prize’s longlist this year are American. Here’s the list:

Did You Ever Have a Family by Bill Clegg.
The Green Road by Anne Enright
A Brief History of Seven Killings by Marlon James
The Moor’s Account by Laila Lalami
Satin Island by Tom McCarthy
The Fishermen by Chigozie Obioma
The Illuminations by Andrew O’Hagan
Lila by Marilynne Robinson
Sleeping on Jupiter by Anuradha Roy
The Year of the Runaways by Sunjeev Sahota
The Chimes by Anna Smaill
A Spool of Blue Thread by Anne Tyler
A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Of the twelve books listed, I’ve only read one, Marilynne Robinson’s Lila. I didn’t like it as much as I did the first two books in the series, Gilead and Home, maybe because I found it more difficult to identify with or sympathize with the fiercely independent Lila. Her demons are not my demons, whereas pastor John Ames, the elderly man reviewing his life for evidence of its faithfulness and meaning, is a man after my own heart. And sometimes I think I know Glory Boughton of Home, albeit I am married with eight children whilst she was a spinster. The story of the elder brother in the prodigal son parable has alway been a poignant and tragic reminder of how I can miss the Father’s love while living in His very house.

I looked up the remaining eleven books on Amazon, and honestly, not one of them was appealing enough for me to add it to my ever-growing TBR list. There were lots of books with multiple narrators, lots of family dysfunction, some “experimental” stuff that I’m pretty sure I would not understand or appreciate. Maybe I’ve “outgrown” contemporary literary fiction, or regressed, or something.