''The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up'' won the 2013 International Rubery Book Award and is a 2012 satiricalDundee International Book Prize won by Jacob M Appel
''

BBC News BBC News is an operational business division of the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) responsible for the gathering and broadcasting of news and current affairs in the UK and around the world. The department is the world's largest broad ...

'', October 26, 2012. novel by the American writer Jacob M. Appel. "Shortly after the attacks of September 11, 2001, in the United States," the author explained, "I knew I wanted to write a book against the backlash of those events. It took me three years to complete…. At the time, I did not think it would take me another eight years to find a publisher. I came close many times, but American publishers appeared to fear the political content of the work and several of them admitted this candidly or even asked me to 'sanitize' the novel." In 2012, it won the Dundee International Book Prize, one of the UK's most lucrative prizes for an unpublished

debut novel A debut novel is the first novel a novelist publishes. Debut novels are often the author's first opportunity to make an impact on the publishing industry, and thus the success or failure of a debut novel can affect the ability of the author to p ...

, and was published by Cargo Publishing. The title refers to the protagonist, a middle-aged botanist named Arnold Brinkman, who takes his nephew to Yankee Stadium for a baseball game. During the

seventh-inning stretch In baseball in the United States and Canada, the seventh-inning stretch is a long-standing tradition that takes place between the halves of the seventh inning of a game. Fans generally stand up and stretch out their arms and legs and sometimes wa ...

, fans are asked to rise for the singing of "

God Bless America "God Bless America" is an American patriotic song written by Irving Berlin during World War I in 1918 and revised by him in the run up to World War II in 1938. The later version was notably recorded by Kate Smith, becoming her signature son ...

" in honor of two Bronx soldiers killed in the line of duty. Arnold remains seated. "When the stadium cameras inevitably find him," wrote reviewer Steve Donoghue, "and put his picture up on the jumbo-tron for the fans and all the home viewers to see, Arnold does the unforgivable: he sticks out his tongue."Book Review: The Man Who Wouldn't Stand Up
'' Open Letters Monthly'', November 27, 2012.

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References

2012 American novels English-language novels Novels about the September 11 attacks War on Terror books Books on anti-terrorism policy of the United States Censored books 2012 debut novels {{2010s-poli-novel-stub

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