The cover of McPherson's prize-winning book.
In observance of the death of James Alan McPherson, winner of the 1978 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, we publish the jury’s enthusiastic endorsement of his story collection, Elbow Room, along with a follow-up note from the jury’s chair.
Carlos Baker of Princeton University headed the three member-jury, which also included Margaret Manning, book editor of The Boston Globe, and Frank McConnell, a Yale English professor. The jury’s unanimous report cited Elbow Room for its “firm intelligence and compassion for the things that make us all human beings, and for those aspects of living that fiction, perhaps, can best tell us about.”
Because the report mentioned only McPherson’s book, Richard T. Baker, administrator of the prizes, wanted a more. He phoned Carlos Baker, who followed up with an account of other work the jury had considered. That document is also reproduced here.
In addition, the jury chair sent the administrator a postcard saying he had reread Whiskey Man by Howell Raines and found it “a competent first novel but overindulgent in extremis.” He added: “Raines looks like a very smart young man and writes well.”
In honor of James Alan McPherson's life, today we publish the 1978 Fiction Jury report and supplement on Elbow Room, which won the Pulitzer Prize in Fiction that year.