2 Different Kinds of Standard Bearers
Early in my career Maureen Dowd of the New York times published a humorously written but presumably sincerely felt column deriding the “Chick-Lit” novels that were filling up bookstores and libraries. She pointed out how unseemly it was to have pink covered books with fun, catchy titles nestled next to brown covered, respectable books by Charles Dickens or some such nonsense. The pink books were essentially cheapening literature on a whole.
One of the offending books she name checked was mine.
My fellow commercial fiction authors were incensed. I was not the only author Dowd named as someone producing unworthy material. Many of the writers who had been singled out ran to their keyboards and started typing their responses. I was invited to respond on Beatrice.com which after some convincing I did with my tongue firmly in my cheek.
But the truth is I really didn’t care what Dowd thought of my books. I still don’t. If anything I’m flattered that she thought I was important enough to merit public criticism.
But the issue has not been put to bed. All these years later I still hear people deride commercial and genre fiction. Those naysayers are usually less eloquent than Dowd but their points are the same. They still think readers and writers should have more refined taste. They believe that we all should be reading books that are the equivalent of fine wines.
I love fine wine. And you know what? I love literary fiction. The Wrong End of The Telescope by Rabih Alameddine, Sea Monsters by Chloe Aridjis, Girl Woman, Other by Bernadine Evaristo, Where Reasons End by Yiyun Li, these literary novels are some of my favorite books of all time. I want more people to read them.
I just don’t understand why my appreciation of those titles should prevent me from appreciating the BookTok sensation, The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid. I don’t understand why an appreciation of fine wine means you can’t ever be in the mood for a cool, refreshing beer or why the quality of that beer should be dismissed.
Here’s what I do understand:
Literary fiction gives critics the excuse they need to show off their own intelligence. They write reviews in which they point out allegories and metaphors hidden within the manuscript that they picked up on, they sprinkle their literary critiques with little known vocabulary or historical and political references that would feel out of place in a review for Sarah Maas’ House of Earth And Blood (Crescent City), J.D. Robb’s (aka Nora Roberts) Random In Death: An Eve Dallas Novel or Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us. Good literary fiction isn’t just beautifully written, it’s fiction that challenges its readers to meet the author where she is. It’s fiction that makes you think.
The genre fiction that some of these critics look down upon? That’s fiction that makes you feel. It’s not there to challenge you. It’s there to comfort you, to uplift and thrill. BookTok loves books that bring on a good cry. Romance readers want books that make them swoon. RomCom readers want to laugh, suspense readers are looking for a dose of adrenaline, horror readers would like to enjoy the sensation of fear while wrapped up in the safety of their own homes.
And almost any reader of a series, be it a mystery, romance, sci-fi or fantasy series, wants to find characters he can form a genuine bond with. The characters within genre series become part of readers’ lives, not for the length of a book, but for years.
I’m no Colleen Hoover. Still, I’ve seen how important Sophie and her friends have become to the fans of my first series. These are readers who have driven hours to see me at book signings, sometimes even flying in from other countries. They’ve named adorable pets after my characters, they make me cakes that look like my books. And when I did an author tour with Kresley Cole I saw the fan art people brought to her, depicting her characters. Then there are the readers who express their devotion to their favorite series by writing fan fiction. Fan fiction only exists because readers can’t get enough of the characters authors have created for them.
I know and accept that many of the standard bearers within our industry will dismiss what we write as…well…not real literature.
But our readers, they’re standard bearers too. Admittedly their particular brand of reader-passion may not impress the critics at the New Yorker, the Pulitzer committee or Maureen Dowd. But that’s okay.
Because it impresses the hell out of me.