The Center for Fiction First Novel Prize 2018 Longlist

The prize itself is pretty self-explanatory; less obvious is how the Center is able to announce a list of the year's potential winners in July. Nonetheless, previous honorees include "The Sympathizer" by Viet Thanh Nguyen, "Billy Lynn's Long Halftime Walk" by Ben Fountain, and "The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao" by a prelapsarian Junot Diaz, so the prize is a fairly reliable indication of quality. Equally intriguing is the Center's periodic knack for choosing less-publicized work like Julie Lekstrom Himes' "Mikhail and Margarita" over prize winners like George Saunders' "Lincoln in the Bardo." So there may be a modern classic buried in this list. The few titles I've read don't seem likely to qualify, but I'm going to keep searching.