VCU news

By Tom Gresham

Victor Lodato has won the VCU Cabell First Novelist Award, which honors an outstanding debut novel published during a calendar year. His winning book is “Mathilda Savitch,” a poignant tale of an adolescent girl who struggles to awaken parents trapped in despair.

Lodato will receive the award at the First Novelist Festival at Virginia Commonwealth University on November 4. Lodato was one of three finalists for the prize, which is now in its ninth year. The other finalists were Carolina De Robertis, for “The Invisible Mountain,” and Vestal McIntyre, for “Lake Overturn.”

The novel, published in September 2009 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, follows the young title character as she attempts to deal with a withdrawn, alcoholic mother and a worn-down father one year after her teenaged sister’s death. Curious and troubled, Mathilda also seeks to uncover the mysteries of her sister’s life while living in a fearful post-9/11 world.

“Mathilda Savitch” has received critical acclaim. Marjorie Kehe, in the Christian Science Monitor, wrote, “Have you met Mathilda? If not, prepare to be – in equal measures – charmed and haunted. Because once you get this precocious teen’s sad, sharp voice in your head, it’s hard to get it out.” Catherine Taylor of The Guardian proclaimed that “There cannot be a recent portrait of downbeat, defiant adolescence that is as convincing as that of Lodato's eponymous anti-heroine.”

The VCU Cabell First Novelist Award celebrates the VCU MFA in Creative Writing Program’s year-long novel workshop – the first in the nation and still one of the few in existence. The winning author receives a $5,000 cash prize. Travel expenses and lodging also are provided for the author and his or her agent and editor to attend the First Novelist Festival, a series of events that focus on the creation, publication and promotion of a debut novel. Co-sponsors of the award are the VCU Department of English, the James Branch Cabell Library Associates, the VCU Friends of the Library, the VCU Libraries, the VCU Honors College and the VCU College of Humanities and Sciences.

More than 130 novels were submitted for consideration for this year’s prize. A group of more than 100 readers reduced the list to finalists and semifinalists. The finalists were then considered by a panel of judges that included Deb Olin Unferth, winner of the 2009 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award for “Vacation;” Lev Grossman, author of the New York Times bestseller “The Magicians;” and poet and translator Brian Henry, professor of creative writing at the University of Richmond.

In addition to Unferth, previous winners of the award have included Travis Holland, for “The Archivist's Story;” Peter Orner, for “The Second Coming of Mavala Shikongo;” Karen Fisher, for “A Sudden Country;” Lorraine Adams, for “Harbor;” Michael Byers, for “Long for this World;” Isabel Zuber, for “Salt;” and Maribeth Fischer, for “The Language of Goodbye.”

The deadline for the 2011 VCU Cabell First Novelist Award is Sept. 15 for books published January through June 2010. For books published July through December 2010, the deadline is January 15, 2011. For more information, visit www.firstnovelist.vcu.edu.