Is Literary Fiction Dead?

Well, what is literary fiction? A slippery term sometimes identified with ‘highbrow’ and ‘pretentious’, it is usually connected with critically acclaimed, award winning fiction. ‘It's those serious-minded novels,’ said Robert McCrum, ‘of high artistic intent by writers with a passionate commitment to the moral purpose of fiction.’ Sounds lofty?

You, as a writer, must have often asked yourself that question.  Readers, those who don’t write, don’t usually ask such question. Serious readers might ponder this phenomenon, though. And if literary fiction is dead, to your dismay, those readers will seek pleasure elsewhere, obviously not through the reading form of printed word.

So, it’s you the writer who wants to be read is the worrier. And then the editor who makes a six-figure salary to edit a quarterly literary publication. Nowadays, the editor laments the steadily declining readership, the dwindling subscription of his university-based quarterly. Who does he blame? He blames the glut of the MFA programs by the academic institutions, too many, that have produced a surplus of writers who, according to Ted Genoways, editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review, ‘bored readers with work that is insular, self-centered and often unreadable, when fictions should be concerned with big issues, radiant and reflecting the larger world.’ One thing for certain is the fact that these writers, should they not make it as ultimate authors, would likely end up teaching, editing, agenting. And they are serious readers in this read-no-watch-TV-yes world, unlike those referred to by Gore Vidal: ‘. . . reading of any kind is on the decline. Half the American people never read a newspaper. Half never vote for President. One hopes it is the same half.’ Amen.

So, is literary fiction dead? Not yet. But it’s very sick. Now, don’t blame the MFA programs, the ‘navel-gazing MFA graduates,’ says Jay Nicorvo, who are killing literary fiction. Then what’s killing literary fiction?

Picture a ballroom full of book editors and the hosts are the commercial publishers. They’re here to play the game of musical chairs. ‘When the music stops,’ Nicorvo wrote, ‘the editor who isn’t on the acquiring end of a New York Times bestseller—Poor Little Bitch Girl, anyone?—is left without a desk chair.’ Today, editors don’t nurse an author, giving him time over the years to develop his voice, his style to become a family member of the imprint. Tastes no longer dictate what an editor acquires for. He, like an investment banker, now acquires what makes magabucks for his bosses. With this blockbuster mentality, publishers have killed the midlist authors. This mentality takes the mass market’s pulses and feeds the market what it craves. It aims at blockbuster books that pay the bills. Books that might have lasting literary quality bow to books that reflect the current social, political trends.

What has changed drastically is the publishing landscape. Traditional book reviewers have as much impact on a book’s sale as amateur reviewers on Amazon, which is out of editors’ control. The sure thing for them to do now is to model after the movie business: producing blockbusters. This is like the world of dinosaurs when the meteors hit the earth. The dying breed of literary fiction writers now run for their survival by self-publishing their work through print-on-demand (POD) to preserve themselves. Or they publish online through, say, smashwords.com, where writers become eBook authors overnight. Online publishing has become the nesting ground for e-magazines. Look at the growing popularity of indie publishers like McSweeney’s, Tin House, Dalkey Archive, A Public Space. Perhaps printed literary magazines should rethink of making themselves a permanent commodity, instead of just another issue, completely disposable, which costs as much as a new novel.

But don’t blame anyone else yet. Look at the quality of literary fiction recently. Does it excite you? Don’t blame the readers who gobble up thrillers, YA fantasy, horror and crime novels. Why is that? Well,  literary fiction is too boring, ‘if anything ‘too PC’’.

Now, literary fiction isn’t dead. Readers, writers, editors, publishers: give it a mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, because if it dies, each of you is to blame.

‘If such a crisis brought about the restructuring of the Detroit auto industry,’ Nicorvo said, ‘aided by the desperate implementation of available and developing technologies, it can usher in the restructuring of New York City publishing.’               

[Image source from www.motherjones.com]