Patrick deWitt's hot streak just turned incendiary: The 36-year-old Portland novelist has been named to the 13-book longlist for the Man Booker Prize for his second novel, The Sisters Brothers.
Yes, the Man Booker Prize, the prestigious and ever-contentious British award whose previous winners have included Salman Rushdie, Kingsley Amis, Margaret Atwood and Kazuo Ishiguro. DeWitt's fellow honorees this year include Julian Barnes.
How is deWitt even eligible for this tweedy London honor? Turns out he was born in Canada (on Vancouver Island, to be precise), which makes him a citizen of the Commonwealth. So far as we can figure, this makes him the first Oregon resident named a finalist for the Man Booker, though you're welcome to prove us wrong.
Add this to the rave reviews for Terri, the John C. Reilly movie deWitt wrote, and the guy's having a decent year. So is North Portland bar the Liberty Glass, deWitt's longtime watering hole, which can now count its resident three-legged dog Otis as a character in a novel longlisted for the Man Booker Prize.
WW's previous Patrick deWitt coverage:
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