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LaPlante wins Wellcome prize
Debut novelist Alice LaPLante has won the third Wellcome Trust Book Prize for her tale of a "brilliant mind in terminal decline".
Turn of Mind (Harvill Secker) beat Philip Roth's Nemesis as well as titles by Sarah Manguso, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Ann Patchett and Louisa Young to the £25,000 prize, awarded last night (9th November). The Wellcome Trust Book Prize rewards works of fiction and non-fiction on the theme of health and medicine.
Turn of Mind is written from the point of Dr Jennifer White, a former surgeon in the final stages of Alzheimer's, who comes under suspicion after the murder of her best friend.
Vivienne Parry, chair of the judging panel, said: "Hats off to Alice LaPlante for carrying off this prize for her very first novel, particularly against such stiff competition."
