Love and Death: Is There ANYthing Else to Write About?

[Jack Getze]

A self-published author has put himself on the hotspot today by criticizing Frank Bill's Crimes In Southern Indiana: "From what I could tell," writes John H. Byk, "Crimes in Southern Indiana, is to crime fiction what the film, Saw, is to horror movies — a mindless string of sensationalism connected by the thinnest of thematic threads. I felt insulted as a reader by the clipped, non sequitor dialogues and two dimensional characters that reminded me of porn stars. Yet this tripe attracted the attention of a major literary agent and secured Mr. Bill a contract with a giant in the publishing industry (FSG). Congratulations to him and sour grapes to those who embrace this new trend.

"These authors, who write like Bill and who are featured in popular crime fiction ezines across the web, don't have the stamina to write a full length novel because there is no suitable framework to contain continuous splashes of blood on page after page.  But a society numbed by violence feeds upon these stories like frenzied sharks or masturbatory adolescents unable to control their urges or to satisfy their needs. 

"Sex and death. That's always what sells. Ask any freshman Marketing student."

My question for fellow CrimeSpacers: Violence can be overdone, sure, (I don't think so in this case from what I've read of Frank's short stories) but is there anything else to write about but love and death? Mr. Byk keeps deleting the angry comments, but his whole blog post is here.

Read more: http://blogcritics.org/books/article/sampling-frank-bills-crimes-in...

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Yeah, you're probably right.

I guess I'm off-stride because I've been reading so much good stuff lately, and all the "lit lit" stuff I see is just so crushingly boring.

But isn't the whole thing about "literary" that it's not plot or character driven, just all about the writing?   So doesn't that sound like style over substance?

[Eric Christopherson]

I'm fairly sure lit fic is supposed to be character driven, but definitely not plot driven. Of course some of it does end up being style over substance. More often IMO it ends up being substance over story telling. :)

[Brian Hoffman]

Well written short stories and novels often use sex and/or death to make a larger point, like bravery, honesty, love, devotion, and patriotism.  Although literary novelists think this is their personal domain, it isn't.  

Another thought.  Literary novels are just another genre that aren't doing well in the bookstores.  Oops, the bookstores aren't doing well. 

[I. J. Parker]

Well, that's pretty much what I wanted to say.  Love and Death are simply the most powerful aspects of the human existence.  So, no wonder.  It's what what you do with them as an author that counts.

[Jon Loomis]

I know a lot of literary novelists, and I don't think any of them would be interested in writing stories or novels that have some kind of predetermined moral in mind about bravery, honesty, patriotism or cleanliness--or whatever list of Boy Scout virtues you want to use.  They might explore those things as elements of the human condition, given human frailty and moral failure, etc., but that's not the same as making a specific larger point, I don't think.

Literary fiction isn't about making money.  It's a miracle that it ever does, really.

[I. J. Parker]

Snob appeal, do you think?

[Jon Loomis]

Literary fiction has snob appeal, you mean?  Maybe for some readers, but that's a bad reason to like anything.  I think generally it appeals to people who are willing to be active as readers, who care about language and maybe don't need their stories to have such predictable structures, image sets and casts of characters.  We complain about cliché in crime fiction, but that's often what readers want (the good guy has to win, right?)--it's like good, predictable comfort food.  Nothing wrong with that, but it's the opposite of what good literary fiction does--or should do.

[John McFetridge]

I've been reading a lot of John Cheever stories lately (probably because I've been watching Mad Men ;) and that's literary fiction, isn't it? The language is very good, and I do care about that, but more than that it has some great insights into the characters and what leads them to do what they do.

A lot of crime fiction I see is about people with few options so there isn't much to say about them. I guess that's why we hear the term, "plot-driven" so much.

 

 

[I. J. Parker]

Love Mad Men.  Brilliant stuff.

[Cammy May Hunnicutt]

Cheever is literary fiction?

Never realized that.  It's so good and fun and interesting, I never would have suspected.

[John McFetridge]

Well, it doesn't say so on the books so I'm just guessing here... ;)

 

[Eric Christopherson]

Those insights into characters and yet Cheever, personally, was a mess. Funny how that works.