Spurned yet again for the Nobel Prize, ignored completely for the National Book Award and suffering strong critical indifference over his recent novel The Humbling, Philip Roth hasn’t had the best 2009. However, he still has a chance to claim an award this year with the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award. The shortlist for 2009 has been announced and Roth faces some stiff competition. Speaking of the Nobel Prize, Amos Oz—who was considered the odds on favorite to win this year before losing to Herta Müller—makes the shortlist. Other names include Nick Cave, John Banville and Sanjida O’Connell (who represents the sole hope for women this year).

You can read excerpts from each of the finalists here. Below are all the finalists plus a choice quote to see their lack of sexiness in action:

Paul Theroux for A Dead Hand

She took my head in both hands and guided it downward, between her fragrant thighs. ‘Yoni puja – pray, pray at my portal.’

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Nick Cave for The Death of Bunny Munro

It is exactly as he imagined it – the hair, the lips, the hole – and he slips his hands under her wasted buttocks and enters her like a fucking pile driver.

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Philip Roth for The Humbling

It was as if she were wearing a mask on her genitals, a weird totem mask, that made her into what she was not and was not supposed to be.

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Jonathan Littell for The Kindly Ones

Leaning over the lunette, my own neck beneath the blade, I whispered to her: ‘I’m going to pull the lever, I’m going to let the blade drop.’ She begged me: ‘Please, fuck my pussy.’ – ‘No.’

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Amos Oz for Rhyming Life and Death

Attentive to the very faintest of signals, like some piece of sonar equipment that can detect sounds in the deep imperceptible to the human ear, he registers the flow of tiny moans that rise from inside her…

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John Banville for The Infinities

When he kisses her hot, soft mouth, which is bruised a little at one corner, he knows at once that she has been with another man, and recently – faint as it is there is no mistaking that tang of fish-slime and sawdust – for he has no doubt that this is the mouth of a busy working girl.

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Anthony Quinn for The Rescue Man

He had the sensation of journeying through veils, of a headlong descent towards disclosure, and the prospect of pausing to fiddle with more buttons was not to be borne.

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Simon Van Booy for Love Begins in Winter

Sweat pooled in the ridge of my back as I moved like a tide determined to crash against those ancient rocks.

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Sanjida O’Connell for The Naked Name of Love

She smiled, wide-eyed, lithe as a cat, she twisted her body, took his hand and showed him what to do; he felt her breath hot against his throat, her pulse quicken, limbs grow taut.

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Richard Milward for Ten Storey Love Song

Let’s have sex, they think simultaneously, couples having strange mind-reading powers after months and months of trying to figure each other out.

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