Daisy Johnson, the youngest author ever to make the Man Booker prize shortlist, is proving the most popular with readers with just hours to go before the judges unveil the winner of this year’s £50,000 prize on Tuesday evening.
As the judging panel, chaired by Kwame Anthony Appiah, settle in to find a winner from the six titles they picked for their shortlist, 27-year-old British author Johnson’s first novel Everything Under also overtook former favourite Richard Powers at the bookies. Jessica Bridge of Ladbrokes said that while the American literary heavyweight had been the long-term favourite to win this year’s Booker with his environmental novel The Overstory, “money is coming for Daisy Johnson in the 11th hour to cause an upset”. Johnson was given odds by Ladbrokes of 9/4 to win, while Powers sat at 5/2.
Everything Under, a reimagining of Greek myth that tells the story of a difficult mother-daughter relationship in modern Britain, is also the bestselling book on the shortlist: it has sold more than 5,200 copies to date, according to Nielsen BookScan, around 400 copies more than the second bestselling title on the shortlist, Northern Irish author Anna Burns’s take on the Troubles, Milkman.
“Milkman has had the head start in terms of paperback sales and is currently our bestseller. However, Everything Under has enjoyed the most significant uplift in sales since the shortlist was announced. This would be a very strong winner for us, and a very well-deserved one too,” said Waterstones’ Bea Carvalho. “This stunning debut would be an impressive offering from any well-established author. She has a rare talent and I’m really excited to see what she produces next.”
The two US authors on the shortlist, Powers and Rachel Kushner, have both sold around 4,200 copies, with Canadian Esi Edugyan’s Washington Black selling 3,720 copies to date, and Scottish writer Robin Robertson’s novel in verse, The Long Take, racking up sales of around 2,500 copies.
According to Ladbrokes, Edugyan’s novel about an 11-year-old slave on a Barbados sugar plantation is third most likely to win this year’s Booker: it has given Edugyan odds of 7/2, ahead of Robertson at 5/1, Burns at 6/1, and Kushner’s The Mars Room at 7/1.
“All six are very worthy winners,” said Carvalho at Waterstones. “My personal favourite, if I had to choose, would be Washington Black: it’s a thoughtful, profound epic that feels destined to become a future classic. Esi Edugyan shines an uncomfortable light on some of the very worst aspects of mankind, while also managing to celebrate friendship, resilience, the beauty of the natural world, and love. It’s a masterpiece which is full of surprises, and is that rare book that should appeal to every kind of reader.”
