First-time novelists over 40?

Do readers ... prefer younger voices? My God, no! What do the young have to offer mature adults in terms of life experience? Nothing. But it is good for the writers to have practised their craft while young, so that by the time they have something to say, they are well-practised in the art of saying.

YMMV.

The debut book 'The Oldest Confederate Widow Tells All' was written by someone in their sixties or something, unfortunately I can't remember his name, Gargannus or something.

By a strange coincidence, lots of TV celebs write their first novels in their forties.

Alasdair Gray's first noverl - Lanark - was published when he was in his forties. IMO, he's one of our best contemporary novelists. Delightfully quirky, sardonic and never boring.

A well known woman writer. Barbara Pym or someone. Or Mary Wesley, maybe. Who then went on to write heaps

Charles Bukowski and Raymond Chandler started late in life I think -don't know at what age exactly, unfortunately.

Frederick Exley was born in 1929. His first novel, A Fan's Notes, was published in 1968, making him 39 at the time. He most definitely faded away, although his first published effort has remained something of a critical success and cult favorite.

Mary Wesley's 1st novel was published when she was 70 - she literally put the Saga into aga saga.

Last year's Booker Prize winner, Vernon God Little, was a début by a guy over 40. Magnus Mills was over 40 when he published The Restraint Of Beasts. I'm pretty certain Sebald was over 40 when he was first published. I think there are quite a few around. On top of that, there are plenty of writers who didn't really get into their stride until their 40s. Beckett published a fair amount when he was young, but he only really found his voice in his 40s.

Vernon God Little was one of the weakest Booker Prize winners ever. I think the judges let their anti-Americanism get to them on that one (and I'm the first one to critique America and our, eh, repulsive current government, but that book was just plain stupid...).

As for SRH, what do you have against young writers? Lots of great books were written by people in their 20s. Pynchon wrote V when he was 24. White Teeth by Zadie Smith was one of the most impressive debuts of the 90s.

Kerouac wrote On the Road at 28 and wrote the bulk of his works in his early 30s.

I think younger voices are fine. As for younger voices not being "mature adults", I've seen plenty of older people that I would definitely not classify as "mature".

Yeah, I have to agree that Vernon God Little was not good. It had a few good comic moments but the targets for satire were too obvious, the characters stereotypes, and the voice to my ears sounded wrong, indeed sounded like what a 40 year old Australian might think a 15 year old Texan would sound like.

Vernon God Little is the best book I've read in recent times.

I thought it was a lot better than that Dog in the Nightime business.

possible spoilers
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I haven't read Dog In The Nighttime. But I do think Vernon God Little was poor. He chose the softest of soft targets - the news media and Southern white trash - but didn't have anything interesting or unclichéd to say about them. The people are all absurd stereotypes - fat morons addicted to junk food, evil manipulative news reporter etc. It was as if you collected together all the clichés you could think of about Texas and put them in a novel - guns, death penalty, junk food, fat people. Then he opposes that to a sort of "noble savage" Mexico where people give you free beach houses in the jungle for no good reason and ply you with beer and good times. The "televised execution" gag has been done before and the "stop the execution, your pardon's just come through!" type ending was amazingly
trite and, once again, clichéd.

But isn't it the best thing about that book?

I guess you should've rot13ed your spoiler.

I believe Harriet Doerr wrote her first, Stones for Ibarra, when she was well into her 60's

Yo! Check this out!

11.35pm BBC 1 Thursday 12 August (TODAY!)

THE MAKING OF SHEILA QUIGLEY

A remarkable story began when a Durham grandmother received 300,000 pounds from a publisher for her first novel. Film-maker Christopher Terrill followed Sheila Quigley as her life changed before 'Run For Home' was published.

Followed by Holiday Weather.

Who cares whether the author is in his/her 20's,30's, or close to a hundred? It's the book that matters.Are we as a society that VAIN?

I think there are some problems in the current literary trend of preying on teenagers and twentysomethings and publishing sub-standard books and declaring them "groundbreaking" and "sheer genius" when they are obviously shite.