Second Class Citizens?

[Keith Raffel]

I just finished reading Christine Falls, the much ballyhooed new book by John Banville. Mr. Banville won the Commonwealth's highest writing honor, the Man Booker Prize, in 2005 for The Sea. He penned Christine Falls under the pseudonym Benjamin Black. In fact, the copy I picked up at M is for Mystery is even signed "Benjamin Black." Marcel Berlins' review in The [London] TImes is quoted on the back jacket: "Banville may have swapped the literary novel for crime, but he hasn't abandoned writing with elegance and beauty...." In last weekend's review in the The New York Times, Kathryn Harrison writes: "John Banville has chosen Benjamin Black as the pen name for a project that may be his own guilty pleasure — a classic, hard-boiled crime novel."

To my ear Berlins is implying that one would have expected someone writing crime fiction to have left good writing behind. Harrison seems to be saying Banville is slumming. Now I write crime fiction for three reasons: to entertain, to explore interesting topics, and to make money. Aren't these three reasons why practically anyone would write, even a writer of "literary fiction?" On some sort of Platonic hierarchy, does "literary fiction" have a higher worth than crime fiction? Is it better written? Clearly, bookbuyers are entertained by crime fiction: of the 16 books on the April 1 New York Times fiction bestseller list, ten are crime fiction. I recently read Richard Ford's The Lay of the Land. Terrific. Also read Peter Speigelman's Red Cat. Terrific, too, and extremely well-written. Interesting topics? Racial relations, the priorities for American foreign policy, police corruption, child molestation, Silicon Valley values, dysfunctional families, confusion between sex and love, have all been tackled in crime fiction I've recently read.

Crime writers, we're being sent to the back of the bus! What's the best way to deal with the situation of second-class citizenship beyond continuing to turn out entertaining, well-written, interesting novels (which by the way sell well and make the authors money)? Awaiting your two cents.

[Rose]

Read a review in my local paper today, and gagged on the hyperbole. Think my old English prof would've given me a F- if I submitted something like that.
Don't intend to read it after that review.

[Elizabeth Zelvin]

I'm afraid you're preaching to the choir here. Not sure there is much to be done about it, but it's one of my pet peeves too that critics and academics frequently praise a crime novel by saying it "transcends the genre" and then say the genre isn't up to snuff as literature. As we say in New York, transcending, schmanscending. ;)

[John Kenyon]

Keep writing great books. This debate has been fueled by the lucky few crime writers who get an occasional seat at the literary table in the cafeteria -- Dennis Lehane, Ian Rankin and Michael Connelly most recently, to my memory -- and all make the valid point that some of the most incisive, insightful social criticism and commentary being undertaken in literature today is in crime novels. That's not to slight what people usually call literary fiction -- like you I read and enjoy a wide range of authors -- but you don't usually find much navel gazing in a crime novel. Keep writing, keep selling and keep connecting with fans, and let the slights slide off your back.