Daniyal Mueenuddin Wins The 2010 Story Prize

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Of her Carrie-esque literary yearnings, Ms. Patterson, who followed Mueenudin, had this to say:  “As I went through high school, I said, I’m going to write about this place.  I’m going to get you back.  There was a definite revenge theme . . so yeah, my motives weren’t so pure.”

The extrovert of the bunch, Mr. Tower let loose like a bazooka of self-deprecation.

About the story from which his collection draws its title, “Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” – a parody of a Viking raid whose laughs, nonetheless, are hoarsened by earnest anxieties – Tower said:

“Yeah . . . Pretty much everything from now on is going to be about Vikings.

[…]

I thought, maybe instead of a vampire book, I’m going to write a blob book.”

And then this, about interviews:

“Interviewers always say, tell us about the punk band.

[Mr. Tower, years ago, was in a punk band.]

“Well, we lived in this terrible van and ate a lot of peanut butter.”

Over Mr. Tower and Ms. Patterson, Mr. Mueenuddin carried the day: won the cash, secured the huge, filigreed bowl.  I was unsurprised.  “Beautifully limpid and luminous,” in the description of The New Yorker’s James Wood, Mueenuddin’s work transcends its topicality. Having read his book, I thought him deserving, and cheered him on as he accepted his bounty; having basked in the vision of him onstage, smooth and measured as molasses,  the two ladies beside me, I couldn’t help but note, cheered even harder.