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: 'I like to surround my characters with real people'

With Case Study longlisted for the Booker Prize 2022, we spoke to Graeme Macrae Burnet about his nomination and what winning the prize would mean to him

Criminally good: How crime fiction crept up on the Booker longlist

For decades, Booker-nominated authors have been tangled up in criminal activity. But why has a traditional crime novel never won the prize?

Discover the shortlist: Claudia Piñeiro, ‘I’ve always been very rebellious’

The globally bestselling author and scriptwriter discusses the inspiration behind the unlikely protagonist at the heart of her novel Elena Knows.