In Search of Genre Benders

I find myself in the odd position of having issues with an essay written by a friend, novelist Roxana Robinson, whose fiction and non fiction I greatly admire.

The piece, which ran in Sunday's Chicago Tribune, deals with women's fiction and asks the age old question that goes back to Virginia Wolfe and Nathanial Hawthorne, which is why it "is treated so dismissively."

She's clearly leading up to an argument about "literary fiction", but to make her point, Robinson chooses to compare "romances" to "thrillers". She's going to show that even in genre fiction, the little ladies don't get the respect of the big boys.

Except in the process, Robinson manages to totally denigrate, no, annihilate both genres. Completely and mercilessly.

"The setting of the romance is domestic, the focus narrow," she writes. "The heroine's worldly task is attraction, so the mechanics of allure are crucial, and its tools--clothes, makeup, hair-dos and manner--will be exquisitely detailed. The philosophical scope is limited. If a social issue arises--hunger among the poor, for example--the heroine will take the side of virtue, and favor feeding."

After she goes on to mock a romance plot line she writes: "Thrillers are every bit as shallow as romances: They're just as simplistic, just as formulaic and, just as often, poorly written."

I'm not buying it. Not so much because I write thrillers but because I read them and it may just be me but what I'm reading seems anything but shallow.

What do you think? Are all/most/many thrillers shallow? Are all/most/many romances?

I invite you, dear readers, to write in (mjroseauthor@aol.com) with examples of the thrillers and romances that you consider to be genre benders and I'll post them later this week.

Who do you think can pull off a love story or a suspenseful page-turner and still write a damn good, dare I say, even literary, character driven novel?

Robinson might be right about all this of course and I'm just overreacting because I'm having a bad week toiling away on my next psychological thriller, but I'd still like to hear from you.

Comments

[Carla]

Here's a perfect example on a silver platter--I just finished "Life Sentences" by Alice Blanchard in one sitting. Great characters, suspenseful, brooding, psychological. Rather magnificent all around. If this isn't compelling fiction, I don't know what is. I looked her up and she's a Katherine Anne Porter prizewinner for a book of short stories, so she has the background, as well.

RIVER OF DARKNESS, THE BLOOD-RIMMED TIDE... THE LOVELY BONES!!

Come to think of it, Robinson's argument is crap.

[Trace]

What about T. Jefferson Parker's Silent Joe? Dennis Lehane's Mystic River? Jesus, there are tons of them! Nicholas Sparks books are all romances. I'm sorry, but I think her attitude is shallow and snobbish.

[Lisa Coutant]

Just some comments on the Chicago Tribune article: I don't understand people's need to tear down a genre.

One person will love romances while another will love thrillers while yet another reader will gravitate toward mathematical theory books.

No reader is wrong, each just has different tastes and in each genre there are excellent and not so excellent authors.

What happened to authors focusing on improving their own writing instead of finding ways to try and make others feel miniscule?

Why the continuous need to try and denigrate a genre and, in essence, denigrate the readers as well?

Writers should be aware of the needs of the audience and try to meet those needs. If readers don’t like something, then they let us know by not recommending it, not buying it, not continuing a relationship with the writer each time a book is released.

How can the writing community encourage refocusing this negative energy into continuously improving what is published? Or maybe it’s just a pipe dream and what articles like the one in the Chicago Tribune is really about is refueling controversy.

[Karen Scott]

It seems to me that some people just aren't happy unless they're making waves, and by the sounds of it, that's the sole motivation behind this article.

[Beth Anderson]

Re Romances: Sounds as though that columnist was having a hell of a bad week and definitely didn't do her homework on romances. Some are simplistic, to be sure, but the vast majority do focus on today's issues and of COURSE the heroine is on the side of right, for God's sake, otherwise she wouldn't be a heroine in that or any other book. Hasn't she ever heard of Jean val Jean, the quintessential hero? He was on the side of right too. Does that make him simplistic? I wrote a Harlequin Superromance myself and I can tell you those are not books where the focus is on hair, clothes, shoes, etc. Mine was on corporate crime, with several socially relevant subplots--divorced parenting, family problems, etc. I spent precious little time and effort worrying about my heroine's choice of clothing. Tell her she gets an F for her column and she should do her homework next time.

[PJ Parrish]

What rot. First Stasio lobs spitballs at Chick Lit mysteries and now the Chicago Tribune's, in a fit of second-city pique, has their bully beat up on not ONE genre but two. Sure there is a lot of junk published in romance and thrillers. But it's entertainment for God's sake. You want something more intellectually nourishing, something that will illuminate the human condition? Go read Bret Easton Ellis's latest. Oh wait. Maybe that isn't the best example...

[Elaine Flinn]

Frankly, my dear's-I don't give a damn what 'they' think. It's all hogwash anyway-the knocks, I mean. Seems to me to be just another worn out way to get your name in print. Stir up a controversy (ala Penzler) and get quoted all over the place. Hmmm...maybe I ought to give it try? Naw, I like to look in the mirror each day and not gag. Actually, at my age, I avoid the mirror as much as possible.

[Elaine Flinn]

Oh, silly me! I should have read her article before I posted. Gosh, she just had a book come out the other day. Guess my take on her rant was right on target. I'm sure there will be a run on her new book now.

[Heather McCutcheon]

I bet that there are as many shallow romance novels and formula-fitting thrillers as there are long-winded, over-dramatized literary fiction and whine-soaked pop-culture fiction.

I don't understand why anyone has to tear down another genre, what is the point?

[Eric Bloom]

While I do not read romance novels, I am certain that there must be many worthy ones, as well as many that are poorly written.

The same thing is true of thrillers/mystery novels, a genre that fascinates me. But I don't enjoy everyone that I read and usually tend to purchase books written by the same authors.

I think it's more useful to concentrate on the books I find satisfying then venting about those I do not. End of story.

[Eric Bloom]

While I do not read romance novels, I am certain that there must be many worthy ones, as well as many that are poorly written.

The same thing is true of thrillers/mystery novels, a genre that fascinates me. But I don't enjoy everyone that I read and usually tend to purchase books written by the same authors.

I think it's more useful to concentrate on the books I find satisfying rather then venting about those I do not. End of story.

[LewisPerdue]

This seems like one of those cases where the pompous critic (sorry, mostly redundant, that) is miffed because people are reading what they WANT rather than what the critic says they SHOULD.

[Barbara W. Klaser]

What romances has she been reading?

I haven't read any straight romance in sometime, since my writing interest is currently in mysteries (albeit romantic ones--can't help myself), and my reading interest has gone in other directions. Romantic suspense would be the closest I come, these days. I've been re-reading Mary Stewart. But I used to read category romances a lot. I never read a published romance with as limited a scope as Robinson describes, even those I didn't care for.

Clothes, makeup and hairdo as the heroine's tools? Please. I haven't met a heroine in a romance who was that shallow. If they exist, they're certainly not the norm.

Manner? What does that mean?

And I'd rather a heroine promote feeding the hungry than starving them. There's nothing wrong with a little virtue in fiction, as long as it's spiced up with plenty of conflict and action.

I wish people who don't like particular genres would simply refrain from reading them, instead of feeling they have to put them down in public, as if we have to choose sides. Can't we call a truce? Leave my genres alone and I won't pick on yours. :)