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Paul Auster had not written a novel for seven years, and then he wrote one that came in at nearly 900 pages. Three of the other writers shortlisted for this year’s Man Booker prize had never written one before – although to regard master fabulist George Saunders as a debutant is something of a cheat. The other two – Emily Fridlund and Fiona Mozley – we can certainly allow, as well as noting that their novels, History of Wolves and Elmet, privilege the complicatedly unreliable stories of solitary children in solitary places, both made vulnerable by the violence of adults.In a shortlist that seems to reject conventional realism Man Booker also includes Ali Smith’s Autumn and Mohsin Hamid’s Exit West.