Julie Myerson

Although Julie Myerson made her name with her often dark fiction, it was her near-the-knuckle writings about her own children that caused a minor scandal and divided her readers.

Myerson’s 2003 Man Booker Prize-nominated book Something Might Happen deals with convoluted family relationships in the wake of a brutal and motiveless murder of a woman in a seaside town resembling Southwold in Suffolk (where Myerson has a second home). Needless to say, Myerson, who wrote a regular anonymous newspaper column about the travails of living with her three teenage children and caused a furore with an unsparing book about her son Jake, is particularly convincing when detailing the lives of the families’ children and the complicated emotions they evoke in their parents.

All nominated books

Something Might Happen

This is not a whodunit. Instead, Julie Myerson investigates the effect of a murder on an ordinary community, a family - and one grieving woman.

Percival Everett interview: 'How long did it take to write The Trees? Sixty-three years'

With The Trees shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, we spoke to Percival Everett about what ranching taught him about writing, why oppressive regimes want an under-educated populace and why he tries to get people laughing

Graeme Macrae Burnet interview: 'The most important research I did was ploughing through women's magazines from the 60s'

With Case Study longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, we spoke to Graeme Macrae Burnet about surrounding his characters with real people, resisting classification and his favourite Booker books

Caminito, La Boca, Buenos Aires, Argentina

What's on my bookshelf: Claudia Piñeiro

The bestselling crime author talks us through the books that have inspired her career.

Read the 2022 shortlist: an extract from The Trees by Percival Everett

Read the opening from Percival Everett’s striking novel, which combines an unnerving murder mystery with a powerful condemnation of racism and police violence.