02 Feb 2012 19:26:36
The chairman of the judges, Geordie Greig, said "there really was a fierce debate" during the 90-minute judging discussion. "There was quite bitter dissent and argument to find the winner. The debate was prolonged with passionate views over two books." The books were Pure and Now All Roads Lead to France, Matthew Hollis's gripping and moving biography of the war poet Edward Thomas.
Greig, editor of the London Evening Standard, said the prize, which chooses the best overall book from five categories – novel, biography, poetry, children's novel and first novel – was one which came "with a sense of impossibility about it. You're not just comparing apples and oranges, it feels like you're comparing bananas and chicken curry. It makes the task difficult and interesting." He said Pure emerged as the majority winner after 45 minutes of quite bitter "toing and froing, dinging and donging" – not unpleasant, he said, but "forthright".
He implied that he was on the side of Hollis, but said no one had argued that Pure was not "a book which had incredible merits". He called Pure "a rich and brilliant historical novel of death and superstition. It is a morality tale which engrosses with its vivid evocation of pre-revolutionary France."
Pure is set in 1785 and follows the story of a young engineer, Jean-Baptiste Baratte, – charged with demolishing Paris's oldest cemetery and removing the corpses.
After accepting the prize, 51-year-old Miller said he would probably spend the money on "living" – paying the mortgage. "It's not as if writers tend to be particularly wealthy people. I have a young daughter, I can feed her and dress her."
He was surprised and shocked at the result. His first word on winning was "blimey." He added: "By the time you give a book to your publisher you never really know what it is any more. It's a pile of paper and beyond that you're just glad to get you life back. I had no special sense of this one being the one."
Miller's first novel, Ingenious Pain, won the Impac Dublin prize and the James Tait Black award. In 2001, his novel Oxygen was shortlisted for the Booker and Whitbread (forerunner of the Costa) novel prize.
Many pundits had predicted success for the poet laureate Carol Ann Duffy. Her volume of poetry The Bees missed out, along with Moira Young's children's book Blood Red Road and Christie Watson's first novel Tiny Sunbirds Far Away.
Pure becomes the 10th novel to win the overall prize in 40 years of the various incarnations of the prize and ends the decent run of poets following wins for Jo Shapcott last year and Christopher Reid in 2009.
Greig said the judges made their decision with criteria that included durability, memorability and quality. "We were looking for quality."
The prize was presented at Quaglino's restaurant in Piccadilly, London, where the Costa award organisers also announced a new short story prize for 2012, although it will not be judged alongside the other five category winners.
This year's judges were actor and comedian Hugh Dennis, broadcaster Mary Nightingale and authors William Fiennes, Flora Fraser, Patrick Gale, Jojo Moyes and Eleanor Updale.
Miller's win was welcomed by Jonathan Ruppin, web editor for Foyles bookshops and a judge for the 2010 Costa award. He said: "Like Hilary Mantel, who finally became a major name when she won the Man Booker, Miller should now gain the commercial success his stylish and absorbing novels have long deserved. Pure perfectly captures the mood of a downtrodden and angry nation, on the verge of overthrowing a self-serving and out-of-touch ruling class – it's very much a book for our time."
