By most estimations, Alan Furst is an accomplished author. Still, the choice of the spy novelist as the winner of the 2011 Helmerick Award is somewhat of a surprise.
Helmerick Winner Alan Furst
The Peggy V. Helmerick Distinguished Author award has been given in previous years to John Grisham, Ian McEwan, John Updike, and Neil Simon, names that might be considered ‘household’ compared to spy novelist Furst.
The author has a Tulsa tie, however, in that one of his novels contains scenes set in Tulsa. Furst visited the city in 2007 to give a reading at a local bookstore, and included some of his observations in the 2010 novel Spies of the Balkans.
Although his earlier career included writings so diverse that a collection of his works and manuscripts at the University of Texas describes them as writings “for which no common denominator can be found,” the New York author has become known for spy novels set before and during the second World War.
However novels are grouped, the selection of Furst as the Helmerick winner places the domain of Tom Clancy and Robert Ludlum on the same elevated plateau as the works of Norman Mailer and John Updike, authors who might be considered ‘literary’ as opposed to ‘genre fiction.’
In each genre, there are authors and individual works with that rise to loftier attention. Just as the Charles Portis western True Grit may be considered an American classic to be placed alongside works of literature, perhaps the espionage of Furst will find a similar place of timelessness.