"I was running out the door to pick up my kids from school when my publicist called," Christopher Sorrentino (left) was saying as he stood in line at the National Arts Club bar before his reading Wednesday night, describing how he'd learned that he'd been shortlisted for this year's National Book Award for fiction. "The foundation had tried to call me on my cell phone earlier to tell me, but I didn't recognize the number, so I just let it go to voice mail."

Sorrentino was excited by the nomination, but more than a little surprised. "After the shellacking Rick Moody and company took last year," he explained, "I really thought they were going to play it a little more major." And, in fact, most of this year's lineup is significantly better known than last year's, but with the exception of E. L. Doctorow it would be a stretch to call them mainstream writers. Mary Gaitskill, who also took part in the reading, has long been admired by other writers, as has William T. Vollmann, but their choices in subject matter (and, in Vollmann's case, the sheer enormity of his output) have kept their fan bases at cultish levels. Sorrentino and René Steinke (right) are relative newcomers, with just two novels apiece, but have both been earning respectable notices for Trance and Holy Skirts--and are eager to familiarize themselves with the other novels, especially in the case of the writers they already respect. "I've been going to the bookstore every week for a while now," said Steinke, who slipped quietly into the reading shortly after it began, "asking if they had Mary Gaitskill's Veronica yet. It came in last week while I was away. But I'm going to buy it here tonight." And, if she was eager to brave the crowd of literati well-wishers surrounding Gaitskill as soon as she stepped away from the microphone, she might even get her copy signed.