The slip by Lucas Schaefer – Winner of the 2025 Kirkus prize for fiction.

Set in the summer of 1998, 16-year-old Nathaniel Rothstein finds happiness and confidence in a boxing gym being trained by Haitian ex-fighter David Dalice. Then one night he just disappears without a trace.

A daring look at sex and race in America makes it a likely contender for the Pulitzer.

The antidote by Karen Russel – Finalist for the 2025 National book award.

Following a prairy witch who serves as a vault for peoples memories and secrets until a dust storm sweeps it all away. Using magical realism to reckon with a nation’s forgetting or willful omission or amnesia. It’s a warning on climate emergency and a look at what could have been, and what still could be.

It leans heavily into magical realism, maybe even too much for the pulitzer?

Flashlight by Susan Choi – shortlisted for the booker prize and the women’s prize for fiction.

A father and young daughter take a stroll along the beach one summer night and the father disappears. This sends the familiy flailing into a future, searching for holds to the past it has been severed from. It looks at the tension between Korea and Japan, as it leaves it all behind and goes back to the U.S.

This is borderline for me, not really centering around American life per se, but american and mixed diaspora. As the wife severs ties with her midwestern family and moves to Japan.

The wilderness by Angela Flournoy – nominee for National book award and Kirkus prize.

Four young black women from the east coast to the west coast brave it together through the wilderness of their young adulthood to grown women. From the late 2000’s to the 2020’s amid political upheaval, economic and environmental instability, and the increasing volatility of modern American life.

While I haven’t read this one, it sounds like a likely contender for the Pulitzer.

The loneliness of Sonia and Sunny by Kiran Desai – A kirkus prize finalist and a booker prize nominee in 2025.

With themes of love and family the book travels from Dehli to Vermont to Brooklyn to Allahabad and Mexico. Two people and their families navigate the forces that shape their relationships, family, history and country.

This book is mostly about India and Indian families, the U.S feels like a destination for an Indian rumspringa so I don’t see this winning the Pulitzer.

A guardian and a thief by Megha Majumdar – A 2025 national book club award finalist and Oprah’s book cub pick.

Set in a dystopian future in India as a family tries to make their way out of India to the U.S. It’s about who we see as good or bad, (guardians and thieves) when the reality is nuanced.

This is mostly about what the U.S. represents in this type of dystopian future which is hope, and not a realistic pov.

Transcription by Ben Lerner

Our narrator travels to Rhode Island do an interview with his mentor, but drops his iphone in the sink and arrives with no way to record the interview.

The author uses this story to look at the technology that aids or distract us from getting a connection to one another. What helps our memory and what ruins it.

It’s a strong contender and I see why.

Audition by Katie Kitamura

Told in two parts where in the first part a well known actress meets an unknown young man for lunch in Manhattan. The second part lays forth an entirely different narrative.

The book is high in concept and very abstract. There are those who “get it” and those who don’t. This is a controversial one for me, but the literary community does seem to adore it.

Culpability by Bruce Holsinger – An Oprah’s book club pick.

A family heading to their son’s high school lacrosse game is thrown into chaos when their self-driving minivan is involved in a fatal accident. Culpability explores a world newly shaped by chatbots, autonomous cars, drones, and other nonhuman forces in ways that are thrilling, challenging, and unimaginably provocative.

Typical American family struggle with new technology. It’s also one of Kirkus best books of 2025, so I consider it very likely.

Buckeye by Patrick Ryan – Read with Jenna pick.

A portrait of small town America from the 30’s to the 80’s that touches on loss, identity, love and family. When four main characters have to live with the consequences of their actions as it follows them through time.

Universal themes in post-war America sounds very Pulitzer to me. And it’s described as a sweeping story, and yet intimate.

Dominion by Addie E. Citchens

Set around the turn of the millennial a story is told by two women about the men in their lives fuled by the patriarchy.
Pricilla – mother of five boys and the reverend’s wife, has gotten four of her boys safely and successfully out of her house and into the world. But her youngest Emanuel tests her limits as he’s becoming more and more like his father. 

With fresh and origial prose I find this book to be very likely for the pulitzer.