As the Mercantile Library of New York works to make itself over into the first American institution "devoted entirely to the art of fiction," they've revamped a prize for writers and created a whole new award for publishing pros. Last night, at a dinner reception at the Century Club, they honored their 2005 recipients.

The Clifton Fadiman Medal for Excellence in Fiction was created in 2000, and for the first five years, a committee chose the author and work of fiction that would receive it. This year, however, the Library decided to pick one writer to judge the award, and thus, after introductory remarks by Anne Fadiman, Jonathan Franzen explained why he had chosen to honor James Purdy's novel Eustace Chisholm and the Works, which he views as "one of the best post-war novels in American literature." Anything you read after Eustace, Franzen suggested, will probably seem "posturing and dishonest" (including Bellow, whose early Chicago novels are a logical comparison point to Purdy's work). After his speech, Franzen walked to the back of the crowded dinner room to shake Purdy's hand, as the author had made a rare excursion from his Brooklyn neighborhood to accept his prize (and, after posing for a few pictures, went right back home without waiting for dessert to be served).

I had to leave the festivities before Nan Talese was presented with the first annual Maxwell Perkins Award for Dinstinguished Achievement in the Field of Fiction, but I'd been lucky enough to be seated next to former publishing exec Betty Sargent during dinner, and she showed me the testimonials she'd be reading from some of Talese's authors: Barry Unsworth, Ian McEwan, and Margaret Atwood. And it's the fact that those three are just the tip of the iceberg where her authors are concerned that earned her that prize...