Last night Andrew O’Hagan took the book prize in fiction for Be Near Me. (complete list of winners). As Junot Diaz has been sweeping the big awards this year, O’Hagan’s win was a refreshing change of pace. Upset, even.
As for upset, that was me as I tried, unsuccessfully, to liveblog the awards. I couldn’t get online inside Royce Hall, although I’d easily connected 30 minutes before on UCLA’s network. After rebooting twice, with the awards underway, I was prying into my network settings to try — fruitlessly — to fix whatever was going wrong when the man behind me leaned over and asked me to put the laptop away. The man was Kenneth Turan. Oh, I love his criticism! Oh, I was so embarrassed!
Master of Ceremonies Gay Talese was mid-introduction, which as far as I could tell was about how all writers are overly attached to typing at their laptops. If he went on from there, I was too miserable to hear it; Royce Hall was darkened for the event and I was huddled near the wall, illuminated by a telltale rectangular glow of light.
I shut the laptop. For the rest of the ceremony, I used my old-style blogging device: pen and Moleskine.
