Around the publishing industry there has long been a hankering for a certain type of book that is both literary and yet commercial, familiar and yet exotic, well-written but not too dense, accessible but with some depth. They are books that are kind of tough to categorize, because they don't exactly fit into any one genre. I'd often hear people calling them either literary commercial fiction or commercial literary fiction.
But during my last trip to New York I heard an apt label for this category: book club fiction*. And lots of editors want it.
What books are in this category? Think:
LIFE OF PI
*CURIOUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME
*THE STORY OF EDGAR SAWTELLE
*THE KITE RUNNER
EVERYTHING IS ILLUMINATED
*THE LOVELY BONES
*SECRET LIFE OF BEES
etc.
(*EAT PRAY LOVE would be an example of book club memoir)
Which begs two questions, one of which is whether, in writing my own work, how I should be thinking about what I read in relation to what I write. I'm not entirely sure about this, in that my writing style/method isn't necessarily to work to a formula, of any kind. When writing fiction, I'm telling stories with the voices and conflicts and events that come as I put words on the page. The evaluation of genre/niche comes later - I want to grab and catch the words first. Later, of course, there is the issue of genre/niche in relation to marketing, to catching the attention of an agent and publisher. And yet there are so many books that have been successful and eluded pigeonholing. They were what they were, and readers found and loved them.
The other? Have you thought of hunting among book club recommendations to find among them more books you'd like to read? Of the list above, I've asterisked those I own or have read (own meaning I haven't read 'em yet). Publisher sites often have book club/reading group sections to cater to this market.
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