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Judging books by their covers,
Winner of the National Book Award Train “This song is called ‘Alice’s Restaurant,’ and it’s about Alice...and the restaurant, but ‘Alice’s Restaurant’ is not the name of the restaurant, that's just the name of the song... and that’s why I called the song ‘Alice’s Restaurant.’” So sayeth Arlo Guthrie. Winner of the National Book Award, likewise, is not a book that is the winner of the National Book Award, it’s just the name of a novel about a fictional book that is the winner of the National Book Award, and that’s why Jincy Willett called the novel Winner of the National Book Award. It’s one of the rare times that a creative (some may say “stunt”) title doesn’t inspire a very creative cover, but I suppose it’s an appropriate cover, as the title is the thing, and it probably ought to dominate. It’s just a bit dull, is all. The bright spot of this cover is the little gold starburst, where such a proclamation would usually be slapped on, but here it’s just to call out that the author wrote another book that the prospective reader might have heard of. Now that’s kind of clever.
Train, on the other hand, is by someone who really did win the National Book Award some fifteen years ago, Pete Dexter. And his cover is sharp — no stunts necessary: it’s got a morbidly compelling image of a woman overboard, so to speak; grimy but vibrant green lettering (which is even more striking in person because the spot gloss varnish they used makes the letters explode off the cover); and the honorific “Winner of the National Book Award” is treated almost as an aside. It says, Sure, I won a prestigious literary award, and I honor that, but I’m going to pretty much let the book speak for itself, if that’s all right. Judgment: You can get anything you want at Alice’s Restaurant (excepting Alice). Hey, that reminds me: Thanksgiving’s coming up!
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