If you walk into a bookstore, you'll see genre fiction separate from literary fiction. Genre fiction (also called commercial and mainstream fiction) is comprised of these subcategories: mystery/thriller, romance, westerns, horror, sci-fi/fantasy, and young adult. It is generally viewed as books for the masses, while literary fiction is considered more highbrow.Can we stop with that?
I'm gonna call this elevation of literary fiction "genreism," an elitist holdover dictating that a certain class of books (one that can be largely inaccessible because of subject matter, or because its pacing makes it difficult to read them between shifts, or for a host of other reasons) is better than another. I'm not knocking literary fiction. There's some truly awesome lit fiction books out there (I just read Adiche's Americanah and highly recommend it). What I am doing is taking the idea that any single genre is better than another, hitting it over the head with a shovel, and burying it.
Because here's the deal: literary fiction IS just another genre.
Some might argue that these examples "transcended their genre," as if the authors set out to write a horror/romance/sci fi/mystery novel and accidentally wrote a really good book instead. I would argue that every novelist tries to write the best book they can, and that genres--including the genre of "literary fiction"--are useful for organizing conversations, catering to moods (sometimes you just wanna read a romance), selling books, and nothing else.
Because I'm teaching a class on genres in Boston in February, and because I write across genres (mystery, fantasy, young adult, and lit fiction) and am trying to figure out what exactly that means, and because this is important (genreism stifles reading and writing), I'm going to break it all down.
My next post will provide a definition and examples of literary fiction, romance, westerns,
The lists will not be definitive, and feedback (as well as reading recommendations in each category) is welcome!
(And I have to sing this from the rooftops--my Kickstarter campaign to publish my magical realism novel The Catalain Book of Secrets has met its funding goal! Thank you thank you thank you! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1675834533/the-catalain-book-of-secrets)
Awesome piece, I completely agree. I think for example if "The Great Gatsby" or "Crime and Punishment" were published today they would be categorized at crime fiction. Literary fiction IS a genre and not that great of one at the moment in my opinion.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Robin! It's nice to have a bookseller's perspective on it.
DeleteSome of this has to be laid at the feet of risk-averse acquisition editors and agents who know that nothing gets past the marketing people if the book isn't not only marketable but EASILY marketable.
ReplyDeleteI had a half-hour slot with a top New York mystery/thriller agent at a conference back in 2009. During an earlier panel, that agent told a roomful of us: "Don't write to the market. You'll just make yourself crazy, people will sniff out the calculated derivativeness of your work, you won't be happy, you'll probably be two years behind the market anyway ...."
During our session, however, she picked apart my pitch/proposal for its lack of market-friendly characteristics: "Middle-aged male protagonists just aren't selling well right now. ... The Northwest isn't a very hot locale right now. Think about Florida. ... You need a higher body count, and some sort of ritualized aspect to the killings. ... The hero and the love interest absolutely must sexually consummate this relationship, or I can guarantee you that House X and House Y are going to pass, and probably House Z, too. ... I know you're going for small-town suspense, but I can position this better if you aim for more apocalyptic stakes so we can tap the thriller market. Especially since you're male; women readers prefer women authors in suspense. ... You might want to consider a gender-neutral pen name so you can put this forward as "romantic suspense." . ... What if your cop was an FBI profiler instead? I can sell FBI-profiler heroes all year long ...."
The overriding takeaway from the conference: "Don't write to the market ... but if you just happen to write a story the market loves, that would be greaaaaaaat." (voice of Gary Lumbergh from "Office Space.")
Me, I just wanted to write a good book. Who knew that'll never be good enough?