Jesmyn Ward’s “Salvage the Bones,” a bleak but determined novel about a black community in Mississippi devastated by Hurricane Katrina, won the fiction prize. Ward’s acceptance, the culmination of a night of emotional speeches and tributes to those who had been silenced, noted that the death of her younger brother had inspired her to become a writer. She realized that life was a “feeble, unpredictable thing,” but that books were a testament of strength before a punishing world.

“I wanted to write about the experiences of the poor and the black and the rural people of the South,” said Ward, whose brother was hit by a drunk driver the year she graduated from college. Earlier in the week, she told The Associated Press that writing was a way to “ease the looming fact of death.”

Ward’s novel, picked over such better known works as Tea Obreht’s “The Tiger’s Wife,” was based partly on first-hand experience. She was with her family in Mississippi when Katrina hit. They fled the house, fearful of drowning in their own attic.

“We went out into the storm, sheltered in our cars for hours, were denied shelter by a white family who told us we could sit outside in their field but couldn’t shelter in their house, and then made our way to an intersection where another family, again white, took us in,” she said. “To say the least, it was traumatic.”

Stephen Greenblatt’s “The Swerve,” a dramatic account of the Renaissance era rediscovery of the Latin poet Lucretius, won for nonfiction Wednesday. The poetry prize went to Nikki Finney’s “Head Off & Split,” summation of African-American history from slavery to Katrina, while Thanhhai Lai’s “Inside Out & Back Again,” the story of a Vietnamese family in Alabama, won for young people’s literature at a time when the state is reconsidering sweeping anti-immigration laws that went into effect in September.

Winners each receive $10,000.

Actor-author John Lithgow hosted the ceremony, declaring himself humbled before the “great thoughts,” ”quicksilver wit” and “eloquent locution” among the attendees. After Finney’s remarks, a compressed and impassioned review of the injustices and triumphs set to verse in her book that had audience members standing and cheering, he expressed pity for the winners who had to follow. Greenblatt, tearful in victory, noted the miracle of words, how an ancient poet such as Lucretius could matter so greatly centuries later.

“My book is about the power of books to cross boundaries, to speak to you impossibly across space and time and distance, to have someone long dead in the room with you, speaking in your ear,” said Greenblatt, a Harvard professor also known for his Shakespeare biography “Will in the World.”

Honorary prizes were given to Florida-based bookseller Mitch Kaplan, who looked back warmly on a 30-year career/calling in a business he found more fulfilling than law school, and to Ashbery, a highly praised poet with an acknowledged reputation for an inaccessible style, who called writing a “pleasure I can almost taste.” In a self-deprecating speech, the 84-year-old Ashbery confided that even intelligent people find what he writes “makes no sense” and “near root canal” as an experience to read.

“I never meant for it to be (difficult),” he said. “I wanted the difficulty to reflect the difficulty of reading, any kind of reading, which is both a pleasant and painful experience since we are temporarily giving ourselves over to something that may change us.”

The National Books Awards are chosen by separate panels of writers for each category. Judges looked through 1,223 books in all. This year’s prizes were born in controversy, after the nominees were first announced weeks ago. The list for young people’s literature initially included “Shine,” by the popular author Lauren Myracle. But the National Book Foundation, which sponsors the awards, quickly acknowledged that “Shine” had been inadvertently chosen over Franny Billingsley’s “Chime.” Nominees are read over the phone by the judging committee to the foundation and one title was mistaken for the other. In an embarrassing see-saw of decisions, Myracle was removed, reinstated, then pushed into withdrawing.

Young people’s judge Mark Aronson joked about the error Wednesday, noting how a misheard phone call in Game 5 of the World Series from the St. Louis Cardinals’ dugout to the team’s bullpen led to the wrong pitcher on the mound at a crucial moment and to the Cardinals’ defeat by the Texas Rangers.

But St. Louis went on to win the series, Aronson added, and so, too, the awards were destined to end in triumph.

Unfortunately, I sucked at the job.

There were three reasons for this. First: I was lazy.

The Fiction section of the Barnes & Noble at Union Square is on the enormous fourth floor of a four-story building. Fiction and poetry take up only about a quarter of it. There’s even a large-scale reading venue reserved for big names. Patricia Cornwell, author of the super-popular Kay Scarpetta crime novels, read in that space while I worked there. The fourth floor seems as big as an arena.

When I checked in for my shifts, it was easy to skulk in one of the far aisles and read. There were usually two or three of us working in Fiction & Poetry; customers had plenty of options for help besides me. But if they did find me in the back, hunched down, concentrating on a novel, it was because my nametag — not my posture — betrayed me as an employee. If I was discovered, I helped the customer find a book with such low-wage petulance — the special mix of lethargy and bile — that they never asked me a question on subsequent visits.

You might have guessed the second problem: I thought I was above the job.

I was an (unpublished) writer! I’d read at a much higher-than-average grade level since, well, grade school. Also, I’d come from (somewhat) humble beginnings and pulled myself all the way up to the formidable station of artist. This 40-hour-work-week deal wasn’t my job. Creating great writing was my job.

(Yeah, I was insufferable.)

Third problem: I didn’t listen to the customers.

If a customer told me he loved Arthur Conan Doyle, I suggested he read Robert E. Howard. (He created Conan the Barbarian.) See the connection? Neither did the customer. If a customer told me she enjoyed the Kay Scarpetta crime novels, I suggested she read Flannery O’Connor. I figured both were full of death and that was good enough. I would’ve been fired (or beaten bloody by an annoyed Patricia Cornwell fan) if I hadn’t made friends with Rasputin.

Rasputin is the (undoubtedly insulting) nickname I gave to the bearded Eastern-European bookseller who ran the adjacent History section. He was short and thin and wore a brown sport coat every day, but his voluminous, greying beard is what made me think of the Mad Monk. (Also, my complete ignorance of Slavic history.)

Rasputin had been working at this Barnes & Noble branch since time immemorial — at least six years. Others worked in History, but none made an impression like Rasputin. He took advantage of a B&N policy that allowed employees to borrow books and take them home at night. A lending library kind of deal, with enough books to fill a warehouse at your disposal. Rasputin seemed to read every new book that came to the History section, and had read all the old ones there long ago. He was as well read, if not better read, than any professor I’d ever learned from. So when he spoke with customers he could talk intelligently about almost any book in the section. He’d listen to what the customers wanted and suggest titles related to the subjects (imagine!) and then listen to those same people when they returned and offered their reactions.  Sometimes they loved what he’d given them. Other times they were deeply disappointed. Either way, they kept coming back to him.

I thought of that time — me and Rasputin up on the fourth floor — after reading a recent piece by Laura Miller called “What makes a book great?” Miller argued that judges of big literary prizes should have to make their criteria for selecting finalists and winners more transparent to the public. I’m actually pretty skeptical that this would address the dissatisfaction that arises each year as finalists are announced. Miller approvingly cites The Morning News’ wonderful Tournament of Books as one contest that forces the judges to explain their reasons for picking a winner or loser in each round. While I always find the commentary fun to read, it doesn’t change the fact that one book has won and another lost. It’s fodder for interesting conversation, but beyond that? No one ever knows if a book is good until they read the book. Reading someone else’s criteria seems like another away to avoid doing just that.

There are so many great booksellers, people who treat the role more like a calling than an eight-hour shift. Those people have more contact with the general reading public than most writers, editors, or critics ever will. Not only do they get to hear what some slice of the actual reading public is enjoying, they also learn — every day — that the “actual reading public” is a complex and surprising organism. While the rest of us largely guess at what it wants (if we’re being honest), the bookseller is much more likely to know. Writers, critics and editors all have agendas (as well as criteria) when they decide on finalists and winner for different prizes. Booksellers won’t look foolish, or be vindicated, if a book they championed is overlooked. They are less likely to fall into the bitterness and jealousy that fellow writers sometimes do with their peers. They certainly don’t have the kind of commercial concerns that trouble nearly any editor, no matter how high-minded.  No doubt booksellers have agendas too, but they generally less of a personal stake in the outcomes.

So when her gritty novel “Shine” was listed as one of five National Book Award finalists last week, it seemed a crowning recognition for an acclaimed novelist. Later that day, Myracle tweeted her elation, saying, “I’m a lucky girl for SO many reasons…. I’m grinning BIG time!”

And then it all hit the fan.

The kids would call this a WTF? moment. It started when a sixth title, Franny Billingsley’s “Chime,” suddenly popped up on the list of nominees. In what will surely go down in the Alanis Morissette Isn’t It Ironic Hall of Fame, it turned out that an organization devoted to the promotion of excellent books had a reading comprehension problem. The Foundation had unintentionally bestowed upon “Shine” the accolade meant for “Chime.” Oops, they sound alike! Things got even odder from there. Though the Foundation initially opted to accept its own mistake and expand the field of nominees to six, it then swiftly reversed itself. In a statement, Myracle’s publisher explained that Myracle “was asked to withdraw… to preserve the integrity of the award and the judges’ work.”

Myracle, whose novel centers on the wrenching aftermath of a hate crime against a gay teen, graciously did just that — with one caveat. After Myracle’s name disappeared from the list of nominees, the Foundation announced that “At her suggestion we will be pleased to make a $5,000 donation to the Matthew Shepard Foundation in her name.” Meanwhile, Myracle has been a spectacular good sport, tweeting her “happy dance” congratulations for Billingsley and “Chime,” and joking to novelist Gayle Forman that “SHINE can join the list of my other best-of 2011 books that were not nominated for an #NBA.” And in the process, the author, who has in the past found herself in the past nearly left out of  the Scholastic Book Fair for her gay-friendly content and condemned in the Wall Street Journal for  themes of “homophobia, booze and crystal meth ” and “language that can’t be reprinted in a newspaper,” is enjoying vindication among fans and fellow authors — as the classiest participant in this whole fiasco.

As “My Life With The Lincolns” author Gayle Brandeis tells Salon, “Lauren Myracle has really been able to (forgive me) shine through the whole kerfuffle. The awards people asked her to step down to preserve the ‘integrity’ of the award, but she’s the only one to show any integrity (and grace and humor) through the situation… I’m grateful that the Matthew Shepard Foundation is going to benefit from the mishegas (and I imagine Lauren Myracle will find many fiercely loyal new readers.)”

And Sarah Darer Littman, author of “Want to Go Private?,” “Confessions of a Closet Catholic,” and more, told us: “I’ve been a huge advocate for ‘Shine’ ever since I read it. I was thrilled when it was nominated for the NBA…. Then we heard there’d apparently been some confusion about the award, which must have been mortifying for Lauren…  a truly kind and wonderful author who deserves much, much better than this. That she has been asked to withdraw her book from the nomination ‘to preserve the integrity of the award and the judges work’ is reprehensible, and quite simply, a display of mind-boggling insensitivity on the part of the National Book Award Foundation and the judges. The only one who has come out of this affair with any integrity at all is Lauren Myracle.”

In many ways, the NBA debacle sums up everything about Myracle’s career. She is at once praised and has praise wrenched from her. She is lauded and kicked back down. Yet through it all, she goes about the business of resiliency.  So the National Books Award finalists is one list she won’t be on this year. By turning bad fortune into something positive, she’s already proven herself every inch a dazzling winner, raising money and awareness for a worthy cause,  supporting her fellow authors, and winning over a slew of new fans. That’s even more than a victory — you might just call it a miracle.

Smith became the rare rock star to win a competitive literary award (Bob Dylan has win an honorary Pulitzer) and the one-time punk rocker offered an old-fashioned tribute to books. She begged publishers not to let the printed page die in the electronic age and recalled working decades ago at a Scribner’s bookstore, stacking the National Book Award winners and wondering how it would feel to win one.

“So thank you for letting me find out,” said Smith, 63, who now claims an award previously given to Rachel Carson, Gore Vidal and Joan Didion.

The fiction prize Wednesday night was a surprise, Jaimy Gordon’s “Lord of Misrule,” a wry, hard-luck racetrack comedy chosen over such better known works as Lionel Shriver’s “So Much for That” and Nicole Krauss’ “Great House.”

Gordon herself is a story of luck turning. For years, she has written books released by small publishers, most recently, McPherson & Company, based north of Manhattan in Kingston, N.Y. She spoke briefly, acknowledged she had not expected to win and mentioned friends who told her that she had given them hope just by being nominated.

Gordon’s fate has already changed. The paperback of “Lord of Misrule” has been acquired by Vintage Books, an imprint of Random House, Inc. Her next novel will be published by another Random House imprint, Pantheon. Meanwhile, the head of McPherson, Bruce McPherson, handed out business cards after the ceremony and remembered meeting Gordon when both were studying at Brown University in the early 1970s.

“She certainly stood out,” McPherson said.

Kathryn Erskine’s “Mockingbird,” inspired in part by “To Kill a Mockingbird” and by the Virginia Tech shootings, was cited for young people’s literature. Awarded for a story featuring an 11-year-old girl with Asperger’s, Erskine praised parents who encourage their children to ask questions and teachers who inspire students to read and to “think for themselves.”

Terrance Hayes, whose “Lighthead” won for poetry, thanked his wife and editor Paul Slovak at Penguin for being “the best kind of partner,” one “who lets you be imperfect.”

Winners in the competitive categories for the 61st annual awards each received $10,000. The black-tie ceremony was hosted by humorist Andy Borowitz and held under the towering columns of Cipriani Wall Street.

Honorary medals were presented to “Bonfire of the Vanities” novelist Tom Wolfe and to one of the creators of “Sesame Street,” Joan Ganz Cooney. Smith did not sing Wednesday, but there was music on stage, as the white-suited Wolfe crooned a few lines from “The Girl of Ipanema,” part of a long, leisurely talk that made up for the brevity of the other winners. He shared memories of his early newspapers days and of the party thrown by Leonard Bernstein and attended by members of the Black Panthers, a gathering immortalized by Wolfe as “radical chic.”

The celebrated “New Journalist” well exceeded his declared deadline of six minutes to tell his story. Midway through his speech, the last before dinner was served, waiters began approaching tables and some of his words were hard to hear over the clatter of plates being set down.

Two authors recently wrote to the National Book Foundation, asking the organization to reconsider its exclusion of retold fairy and folk tales from NBA consideration. (The rule applies to both the “fiction” and the “young people’s literature” categories.) Maria Tatar is a professor of folklore, mythology and Germanic languages and literature at Harvard, and Kate Bernheimer is the founder and editor of the Fairy Tale Review, a literary journal, and editor of a sumptuous new book of short stories based on fairy tales, “My Mother She Killed Me, My Father He Ate Me.” Contributors to that anthology — which wouldn’t be eligible to begin with, on account of containing “work written by multiple authors” — include Joyce Carol Oates, Neil Gaiman and Michael Cunningham, and as the title suggests, we’re talking about the unexpurgated, frequently gruesome, old-school-style fairy tales, not the sanitized Disney versions.

Bernheimer and Tatar point out that the NBA rules don’t exclude “retellings of the Bible and Shakespeare’s plays,” or, for that matter, retellings of any other literary form. The singling out of fairy and folk tales belies a long-standing uneasiness with the form, its vaguely disreputable air. The fairy tale plays havoc with the premium we moderns place on originality. Where do these stories come from? Tatar, who has translated, edited and annotated editions of the folk tales collected in the 19th century by the Brothers Grimm, informs us in her introduction to “The Grimm Reader” that many of the Grimms’ sources, at first said to be simple peasant folk, instead turned out to be members of the brothers’ middle-class social circles. We can’t even be certain that the most iconic fairy tales are as ancient as they’re made out to be.

A fairy tale, like a myth, has no single author, no definitive version. Yet it can be identified despite significant variations. The story of “The Three Bears” originally featured either a fox or an old woman as its protagonist; only in the 19th century, when it was written down by the poet Robert Southey, did the star become a nosy blond child named Goldilocks. If literary quality resides above all in the best words arranged in the best order, then fairy tales may not qualify as “literature” at all. They can dispense with words entirely, yet remain themselves; “Sleeping Beauty” is still “Sleeping Beauty,” even if you tell the story in pantomime.

On the other hand, fairy tales can certainly provide the springboard for literature. The late British author Angela Carter (to whom Bernheimer’s anthology is dedicated) proved this definitively in 1979, with “The Bloody Chamber,” among the greatest short story collections of the 20th century. A.S. Byatt, another contemporary novelist fascinated by the form, speculates in her preface to “The Grimm Reader” that childhood exposure to these strangely “flat” stories, with their recurring motifs of talking animal helpers, wicked stepmothers and patterns of three (brothers, wishes, castles, etc.), lays down “the narrative grammar of our minds.”

That may be why so many decidedly literary classics can also be viewed, in the right light, as retold fairy tales. Is “Pride and Prejudice” a Cinderella story, or a variant of “Beauty and the Beast”? Exactly how far away do you need to get from the original (although of course there are no originals) to evade the label of “retelling”? The record shows that the National Book Awards themselves have not strictly enforced the exclusion; as Bernheimer and Tatar note in their petition to the NBF, the 1964 NBA winner for fiction, John Updike’s “The Centaur,” “retells multiple classical myths.” Furthermore, the back-cover ad copy for the 1973 winner, John Barth’s “Chimera,” describes that book as “three of the great myths of all time revisited by a modern master.”

According to the NBF’s executive director, Harold Augenbraum, the organization will reconsider the exclusion. “My understanding,” he told me in an e-mail, “is that the use of folk and fairy tales has never excluded a book from consideration for the National Book Award: Only straight, unchanged or little-changed retellings have been excluded.” (Although, again, the absence of definitive originals would make this a difficult case to prove.) Besides, the rule is probably superfluous. Having served on a couple of prize juries myself, I can testify that judges are always on the lookout for ways to narrow the field, and don’t need to be admonished to pass on a work that’s significantly derivative of another.

At any rate, no one on the NBF’s current staff was around when the rule was ordained or knows why it was thought necessary in the first place. Perhaps there was a rash of shameless Grimm Brothers knockoffs in the 1950s, when the awards were launched? It’s ironic that this prohibition against fairy tales has roots nearly as obscure as those of the stories themselves. Chances are, though, it won’t last nearly as long as they have.

Referenced in this article

Entry guidelines for the National Book Awards

The Fairy Tale Review’s website

Facebook page for Kate Bernheimer and Maria Tatar’s petition to the National Book Foundation to revise its exclusion of “collections and/or retellings of folk-tales, myths, and fairy-tales” from National Book Awards eligibility