College basketball fans may have to wait until Tuesday for their yearly N.C.A.A. tournament fix, but March Madness for lit geeks is already well under way thanks to The Morning News’s Tournament of Books.
The online contest, first held in 2005, pits 16 novels published the previous year against one another in a series of critical cage matches decided by a panel of judges, with match analysis provided by the novelists Kevin Guilfoile and John Warner.
So far in this year’s opening round, Gillian Flynn’s monster best seller, “Gone Girl,†has stomped Miles Klee’s small-press underdog, “Ivylandâ€; Adam Johnson’s North Korean nightmare, “The Orphan Master’s Son,†has slipped past Maria Semple’s Seattle satire, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette,†and Hilary Mantel’s Tudor-themed historical novel “Bring Up the Bodies†has beaten out Laurent Binet’s Nazi-themed historical novel, “HHhH,†among other bloody (and wordy) encounters. Next up, on Monday: Lauren Groff’s “Arcadia†versus Sheila Heti’s “How Should a Person Beâ€
Ms. Mantel, with two Man Booker Prizes under her belt (not to mention a split-decision in her recent dustup with the former Kate Middleton), would seem to be a heavy favorite to reach this year’s final, to be held on March 29. (The parting message from a judge in the contest, Jack Hitt, to M! s. Mantel, whom he compares to Mae West: “Marry me.â€) But the tournament has a history of upsets, thanks to a Zombie Round, which (sadly) does not feature actual novels about zombies but rather two books chosen from among the eliminated, which are given a shot at bumping off the survivors before the championship match.
Last year Patrick DeWitt’s novel “The Sisters Brothers†rose from the dead to smite Teju Cole’s “Open City,†the very book that had knocked it out in the semifinals. “One Shining Moment,†anyone
