A CALL has been made for the rerun of a major Scots literary prize after a judge resigned in protest over the final selection.

Writer and critic Lesley McDowell said she stood down after a shortlisted book was ruled out as a contender for the Saltire Society’s fiction prize because two judges failed to read it all.

She was also unhappy that the winner was a male author writing from a woman’s point of view when there were three women writers on the shortlist also writing from a woman’s point of view.

McDowell said the shortlisted novel, Ducks, Newburyport by Lucy Ellman, which won the Goldsmiths Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker, was quickly dismissed at the final meeting of the judges because two of the five had not finished it.

“They said they could not but were not asked to give an explanation as to why and it was pushed out very early on,” said McDowell.

“The end of a book is important and can completely change your opinion of the novel but this was not a contender even though I argued for it.”

She added: “It’s not a book group meeting – it’s a meeting to award a prize and you have to do the reading whether you like it or not.

“I’ve been a judge before and this is the first time that this has ever happened but there was no sense that perhaps in future they would put in place a condition that you have to finish the titles you are asked to read.

“It is important because it is really only the Scottish national prize for books now and that is all the more reason for it to be really scrupulous.”

The book is written in a stream of consciousness style, mostly in a single sentence running for 1000 pages and has been described by reviewers as a masterpiece. The prize was won by Ewan Morrison for Nina X.

McDowell said: “I stood down because I felt that it was the wrong choice not just from a literary point of view but was also politically very dodgy.

“I am not opposed to a man writing a woman – that’s fine but when you are saying that man has done it better than those three women and one of these women has already had plaudits from everyone for what she has done it seems crazy.

“Myself and one other judge both described Lucy’s book as a landmark novel that people would be talking about in 10 years’ time so what more does a woman have to do to convince you she is the best voice in that category – especially when two judges had not even finished the book.”

Another point McDowell raised with the society was that one of the shortlisted books was in Gaelic and there was only one Gaelic critic on the panel – who was one of the judges who had not finished Ellman’s book.

“It meant that in the end on the shortlisted panel there was not a single judge that had read all the books to completion,” she said.

McDowell did not attend the final ceremony and asked for her name to be removed from the website’s list of judges but this was done only after The National asked the society for comment.

The prize should be now be declared null and void and rerun with fresh judges, according to Alan Taylor, editor of the Scottish Review of Books.

“To be a judge and not read the whole short list is to call into question the whole integrity of the prize – it does not have any legitimacy,” he said.

“How can we say that somebody legitimately won when one book has not been read by people and not even considered? It’s crazy and whatever you think of Ellman, her book was shortlisted for the Booker, has already won Goldsmiths and is by far and away the most imaginative and ambitious book that has been published in Scotland this year.

“This prize should be declared null and void and rerun with fresh judges.”

Taylor, who was a judge on the Saltire panel for many years, said that during his time all the contenders had been read and discussed thoroughly.

“The idea that you can award a prize without having read the book is farcical in the extreme and enormously disrespectful to Lucy,” he said. “It is just disgraceful. She is a modest person but she must be seething and so she should be.”

Taylor said the result also called into question the Saltire’s Scottish Book of the Year prize as the fiction winner is one of the contenders.

“It has been said for some time that the prize is a joke yet it is the main Scottish book prize and is sponsored by Creative Scotland, an organisation that is increasingly irrelevant and the fact they can allow something like this to happen suggests that our whole attitude to culture is completely barking,” said Taylor.

Sarah Mason, programme director of the Saltire Society said: “The 2019 fiction prize was judged by a panel of five judges (three female, two male) and overseen by an independent chair (female).

“The winning book was chosen by the majority of judges. We do understand that this process, which is fair, can result in some judges not seeing their preferred title win.

“All Gaelic books in all categories were read by four independent Gaelic speaking judges one of whom represented the group on the fiction panel. None of the four Gaelic speaking judges recommended the Gaelic contender for the prize.”

Creative Scotland was approached for comment.