Nathan Filer with his Costa award-winning guide. Photograph: Tal Cohen/EPA
Judges for 1 of the UK’s most prestigious literary prizes on Tuesday heralded a major new talent when they named psychological health nurse Nathan Filer winner of the 2013 Costa guide award for a moving account of schizophrenia and grief.
Filer won towards far more fancied contenders, not least Kate Atkinson, for his debut novel The Shock of the Fall.
The novelist Rose Tremain, who chaired the judges, stated: “For a 1st novel it is astonishingly positive-footed … I believe there is real pleasure about this winner.”
The book is narrated by Bristol boy Matthew from the age of five to his early 20s and is a gripping account of his descent into schizophrenic sickness following the death of his younger brother. It is informed when he is at school, when he is smoking also much marijuana in a grotty flat and from the psychiatric wards he ends up in.
Tremain stated, however, it was not just about schizophrenia: “It is about grief and this is a topic we all have expertise of. It is grief analysed but handled completely with no sentimentality. It gets near that and there had been moments when I received concerned, but it always avoids them.”
The Costa prize is unusual in that it pits five category winners – novel, first novel, biography, children’s and poetry – against each and every other for the best £30,000 prize like evaluating chicken curry with custard, as one former judge mentioned.
Atkinson had been powerful favourite to win for her eighth novel Lifestyle Following Lifestyle, which would have been her 2nd Costa win. It was not to be. “There’s often going to be a bookies’ favourite,” stated Tremain. “By bookies who haven’t go through the books.”
Filer, aged 33, has worked in psychiatric wards for far more than a decade. When last asked about it he said he meant to carry on with the odd shift and to hold his nursing registration up.
Tremain said: “To take this kind of a marvellously articulated factor from his professional lifestyle and bring it to lifestyle in the way he has is such an extraordinary achievement.”
The guide is the merchandise of Filer’s MA in innovative creating at Bath Spa University, in which he now lectures.
Last year it was the topic of a fierce 11-way bidding war by publishers – constantly hunting for the following possible Mark Haddon and his The Curious Incident of the Puppy in the Night-Time. It was at some point secured by HarperCollins, who presented a six-figure deal.
Filer was plainly not expecting to win, nor was his new wife Emily who he married on Saturday. “I was 100% certain he was not going to win,” she mentioned.
He was thrilled even though. “I wrote this guide simply because I want to share it, I was not creating it for myself… I often desired men and women to read through it and winning this means far more and much more folks will read through it so I am absolutely delighted by that.”
Filer mentioned he had felt a accountability not to propagate myths close to psychological well being and would carry on nursing shifts, like one coming up on Sunday.
There is now an expectation, he is the new creating talent on the block. “Of course a pressure comes with something like this as effectively as the reward but I am not going to sit here and bemoan a pretty issue that has just happened.”
Tremain said the five contenders made up a quite excellent checklist and all the books were talked about in the two-hour meeting. “In the end it was not quite tough for us to agree.” Though “not fairly unanimous” there was no blood, Tremain mentioned. “It was a extremely excellent natured and articulate jury. It was a very entertaining afternoon.”
Filer’s Costa win will be daily life-altering, Tremain acknowledged. “There’s usually a risk with a first-time winner – is this a one particular guide wonder? You will not know. But this extraordinary fashion and self-assurance is not an simple thing to do. If I had to bet on it I would say there are far more books in this writer.”
He is the fifth first novelist to win, with prior winners like Atkinson who won in 1995 for Behind The Scenes at the Museum. The final 1 was Stef Penney in 2006 with The Tenderness of Wolves.
The other books missing out on Tuesday were Lucy Hughes-Hallett’s biography of Gabriele D’Annunzio, The Pike Michael Symmons Roberts’ poetry assortment Drysalter, and Chris Riddell’s children’s book Goth Lady and the Ghost of a Mouse.
The prize, now in its 42nd year, unashamedly rewards enjoyability. It was recognized as the Whitbread prize from 1971 to 2005.
This year’s nine-robust judging panel incorporated actor Natascha McElhone, Pointless expert Richard Osman, singer Sharleen Spiteri, and authors and writers Gerard Woodward, Emma Kennedy, Anne de Courcy, Matthew Cain and John Burnside.
Costa guide award won by Nathan Filer for debut novel, The Shock of the Fall
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