Man Booker 2016 journey nearly completed

I have just a 100 pages of my final book to read which I shall do this evening. To,orrow I will prepare food before my friends J and R come for debate, discussion, good food and drink and we shall try and pick our winner. Some brief views on the books I have read for your interest:

Paul Beatty (US) - The Sellout (Oneworld)
- a couple of years ago American authors were finally allowed into the MBP. This is one of the beneficiaries. I found this a very difficult novel to read. It was about race politics in the USA Which is complicated enough in its own right. This is a literary novel with lots of references to American events, people and literature that I do not know well enough to follow. I found it a difficult read and I prefer something I can into, so for me not my cup of tea.

Deborah Levy (UK) - Hot Milk (Hamish Hamilton)
This is by one of the more established authors on the short list. It is essentially about a somewhat warped relationship between mother and daughter who have gone to Southern Spain to seek solutions to the mother's unspecified illness. I found it an easy read but overall I finished unsatisfied. It is one of the favourites I think.

Graeme Macrae Burnet (UK) - His Bloody Project (Contraband)
This is a great read though not sure if it has the gravitas to win the Booker. It is the story of a murder in a crofting community in 1869 and is told through court documents and the writing of the culprit. I enjoyed it and it gave a good insight into historic relations in these ancient communities.

Ottessa Moshfegh (US) – Eileen (Jonathan Cape)
This is about the somewhat dreary life of Eileen. She works in a detention centre for boys and has a pretty unexciting existence. Out of work she looks after her ex-cop father who is a drunkard. I did not like the style and though it had an interesting twist I did not feel it really worked for me.

David Szalay (Canada-UK) - All That Man Is (Jonathan Cape)
Though I have 100 pages to go the issue with this book is whether it is a novel at all. It seems to be a conceptual novel about men and how they deal with sexual tensions in their lives. But it is not a continuous story. Each story is a short story in its own right with no seeming connection to the next story. So we will need to debate whether it really is a novel. It's an easy read though and each short story is interesting.

Madeleine Thien (Canada) - Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Granta Books)
I have left the best until last. This is a wonderful book written about china as it goes through the cultural revolution and then the tianamen square rebellion. It is poignant, it gives a wonderfully complex insight into Chinese lives and the underlying attitudes of those eras partly told through Chinese exiles in Canada. The role of music particularly Bach offers a way of expressing thoughts when to speak might lead to problems.

Dooming it to failure I think this will win. I recommend it strongly.