I have been on a project to read all the Pulitzer winners (and some of the runner’s ups). It has been a wonderful adventure during which I have discovered authors that I would have otherwise missed, but also with some deceptions where I disagreed more or less strongly with the decision of the Pulitzer committee.

The Pulitzer was given 47 times over the last 51 years, whereas in the years of 1971, 1974, 1977, and 2012 there was no winner. In 1971 and 2012, they apparently did not think that there was a book that stood above the others; however, I would have thought Toni Morrison’s fantastic debut, The Bluest Eye could have been an appropriate choice for 1971. In 1974 and 1977 respectively, Thomas Pynchon’s magnificent Gravity’s Rainbow and Norman McLean’s A River Runs Through It were selected by the fiction jury but then rejected by the Pulitzer board who has a final decision. In 1977, they did give a special Pulitzer to Roots by Alex Haley.

Of the 47 prizes that were awarded, 30 went to men. This was a surprise as I usually thought of these prizes as being awarded primarily to men, but it was enlightening to see that a third of the prizes went to deserving women writers.

As for locations, the prize went 14 times to books that are based in New York, 7 took place in the South, 6 were collections of short stories, and 6 took place in New England, and 5 in the West. Europe and Asia were locations for 3 books each and Canada twice. I guess that if you want to win the Pulitzer, it might be a good bet to keep New York in the story somehow or at least focus on New England.

As for the time period, 24 times the period was contemporary to the author, 48 took place in the 20th/21st century, and 7 in the 19th century. Four of the books revolved around the Civil War and 3 had slavery as a theme. WWII was the background for 3 books and the Vietnam War was the background for 2 books. And there was only one novel, The Road by Cormac McCarthy was in an imaginary dystopian future.

Of the many protagonists, the ones that made the biggest impression on me were Rabbit Angstrom in Rabbit Is Rich and Rabbit At Rest, Ignatius Reilly in A Confederacy of Dunces, Theodore Decker in The Goldfinch, Seymore “Swede” Levov in American Pastoral, Joshua Chamberlain in The Killer Angels, Sethe in Beloved, Celie in The Color Purple, Quoyle in The Shipping News, and Gus and Woodrow from The Lonesome Dove. On the other hand, the protagonists I couldn’t stand included Olive Kitteridge (eponymous), Bennie Salazar in The Good Squad, Cesar Castillo in The Mambo Kings, Marie-Laure and Werner in All The Light We Cannot See, Elwood Curtis in The Nickel Boys, and Henry Townsend in The Known World.

Here are my overall rankings. My apologies, but since I strongly feel that Gravity’s Rainbow was robbed in 1974 and that it was the best book written in the past 50 years, it gets a controversial #1 ranking in my table.

RankingTitle1[Gravity’s Rainbow]2Beloved3The Goldfinch4Lonesome Dove5A Confederacy of Dunces6The Shipping News7American Pastoral8Rabbit at Rest9The Orphan Master’s Son10Independence Day11The Color Purple12The Overstory13Empire Falls14The Sympathizer15Gilead16The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay17The Road18The Stone Diaries19Humboldt’s Gift20March21A Thousand Acres22The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao23Middlesex24Angle of Repose25A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain26The Optimist’s Daughter27The Killer Angels 28Elbow Room29The Stories of John Cheever30The Executioner’s Song31Rabbit Is Rich32Ironweed33Foreign Affairs34A Summons to Memphis35Breathing Lessons36The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love37A Visit From the Goon Squad38The Collected Stories of Jean Stafford39Martin Dressler: The Tale of an American Dreamer40Interpreter of Maladies41Olive Kitteridge42Tinkers43The Hours44The Known World45Less46The Nickel Boys47The Underground Railroad48All the Light We Cannot See