Literary Fiction Book Tag
Thanks to the Lauras (Reading in Bed and Dr Laura Tisdall) for making me aware of this tag that is also going around on BookTube. Laura F. specifically tagged me. If you haven’t already taken part and think this looks like fun, why not give it a try? For my examples I’ve chosen books I read this year or last year.
- How do you define literary fiction?
My inclination is to adapt one of Italo Calvino’s definitions of a classic (recapped here): a book that will never finish saying all it has to say. In other words, a perennially relevant work that speaks to the human condition. Obviously, not all literary fiction can live up to that standard; some will inevitably feel dated due to its setting, slang, technology, and so on. But at its best, literary fiction voices, and makes an attempt at answering, one or more of life’s biggest questions. As Laura F. says, this generally means that it lends itself to discussion and (re)interpretation. I know I can be an awful snob about genre fiction, but I avoid crime, science fiction, etc. because I find these genres less ‘serious’ and thus less worthwhile than literary fiction.
- Name a literary fiction novel with a superb character study.
The first novel that comes to mind here is The Poisonwood Bible, which would be a suitable answer for several of these categories but on rereading struck me most for how well developed its five main characters are. Barbara Kingsolver does an impressive job of distinguishing these multiple narrators from each other based on how they speak/write.
- Name a literary fiction novel that has experimental or unique writing.
One of the fiction highlights of 2019 so far for me is Stubborn Archivist by Yara Rodrigues Fowler. It stands out from the autofiction field due to its placement of words. Some pages contain just a few lines, or a single short paragraph that reads like a prose poem. Even in the more conventional sections, a lack of punctuation creates a breathless, run-on pace.
- Name a literary fiction novel with an interesting structure.
In The Monsters of Templeton, Lauren Groff’s debut novel, Willie Upton is back in her hometown in upstate New York, partway through a PhD and pregnant by her married professor. We hear from various leading lights in the town’s history and/or Willie’s family tree through a series of first-person narratives, letters and other documents.
- Name a literary fiction novel that explores social themes.
Mary Ann Sate, Imbecile by Alice Jolly, which I reviewed for Nudge, is written entirely in verse and narrated in dialect by an unlearned servant from a cloth mill town in Gloucestershire. With unemployment rising amid the clamor for universal male suffrage, the scene is set for a climactic clash between the common people and the landowning class.
- Name a literary fiction novel that explores the human condition.
John Steinbeck’s East of Eden has an overarching theme of good and evil as it plays out in families and in individual souls. This weighty material – openly addressed in theological and philosophical terms in the course of the novel – is couched in something of a family saga that follows several generations of the Trasks and the Hamiltons.
- Name a brilliant literary-hybrid genre novel.
The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell is a rare sci-fi novel that I loved wholeheartedly. Set on a near-future Jesuit mission to the two alien species on a distant planet, it is about the possibility of believing in God, and doing good works in His name, when suffering seems to be the only result. (See also: The Book of Strange New Things by Michel Faber.)
- What genre do you wish was mixed with literary fiction more?
I’ve always felt that Maggie O’Farrell expertly straddles the line between literary and women’s fiction; her books are addictively readable but also hold up to critical scrutiny. Her best is The Hand that First Held Mine, but everything I’ve read by her is wonderful. I’d happily read more books like hers. (Expectation by Anna Hope was slightly less successful.)
My Patchy Experience with Book Clubs
I know that a number of you have long-term, faithful book clubs. Boy, am I envious! You might find it surprising that I’ve only ever been in one traditional book club, and it wasn’t a resounding success. Partway through my time working for King’s College, London, an acquaintance from another library branch started the club. A group of five to eight of us from Library Services aimed to meet after work one evening a month at a Southbank venue or a staff room to discuss our latest pick. By poring over old e-mails and my Goodreads library, I’ve managed to remember 10 of the books we read between November 2011 and June 2013:
- Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Philip K. Dick [classic science fiction]
- The Little Shadows, Marina Endicott [Canadian historical fiction]
- A Spot of Bother, Mark Haddon [contemporary fiction]
- The Talented Mr. Ripley, Patricia Highsmith [classic suspense]
- The Vintner’s Luck, Elizabeth Knox [bizarre historical fiction/magic realism]
- What Was Lost, Catherine O’Flynn [contemporary fiction]
- Franny and Zooey, J.D. Salinger [classic short fiction]
- The Rabbi’s Cat, Joann Sfar [graphic novel in translation]
- Girl Meets Boy, Ali Smith [an update of Greek myth]
- Angel, Elizabeth Taylor [an obscure English classic]
That may well be the complete list. Although I was a member for 20 months until I quit to go freelance, we often only managed to meet every other month because we couldn’t find a mutually convenient free evening or no one had read the book in time. I was consistently frustrated that – even when our selections were only about 200 pages long – I was often one of the only people to have read the whole book.
Overall, the quality of books we chose struck me as mediocre: I rated half of these books 2 stars, and the rest 3 stars. (I think I was a harsher rater then, but it’s not a good sign, is it?) Perhaps this is part of the inevitable compromising that goes with book clubs, though: You humor other people in their choices and hope they’ll be kind about yours? My suggestion, for the record, was the pretty dismal Little Shadows, for which I got a free set of book club copies to review for Booktime magazine. But I also voted in favor of most of the above list.
Looking back, I am at least impressed by how varied our selections were. People were interested in trying out different genres, so we ranged from historical fiction to sci-fi, and even managed a graphic novel. But when we did get together for discussion there was far too much gossipy chat about work, and when we finally got around to the book itself the examination rarely went deeper than “I liked it” or “I hated all the characters.”
If it was profound analysis I was after, I got that during the years I volunteered at Greenbelt, an annual summer arts festival with a progressive Christian slant. I eagerly read the eclectic set of three books the literature coordinator chose for book club meetings in 2010 – Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Hester Stanhope by Kirsten Ellis, The First Person and Other Stories by Ali Smith, and The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder – and then as a literature volunteer for the next three years I read and prepared copious notes and questions about our festival “Big Read.” We did Exile by Richard North Patterson in 2011, Dark Eden by Chris Beckett in 2012 and So Many Ways to Begin by Chris Beckett in 2013, and each time I offered to chair the book club meetings.
Unfortunately, due at least in part to logistical considerations, these were run in the way many festival events are: a panel of two to five talking heads with microphones was at the front of the tent, sometimes on a raised dais, while the audience of whatever size sat towards the back. This created a disconnect between the “experts” and the participants, and with the exception of the McGregor meeting I don’t recall much audience input. I’ve mostly blanked out the events – as I tend to for anything that entails public speaking and nervous preparation for something you can’t control – but I was pleased to be involved and I should probably make more of this on my CV. It wasn’t your average book club setting, that’s for sure.
In recent years the closest thing I’ve had to a book club has been online buddy reading. The shadow panels for the Wellcome Book Prize and Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award fall into this category, as do online readalongs I’ve done for several Iris Murdoch novels and for C.S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity with various female family members. A few of us book bloggers chatted about Andrea Levy’s Small Island in an online document earlier this year, and my mom and I e-mailed back and forth while reading W. Somerset Maugham’s The Painted Veil in May. I’m also doing my last three of the #20BooksofSummer as online buddy reads, checking in occasionally on Twitter.
Of course, there are some inherent limitations to this kind of discussion – people read at different paces and don’t want to spoil the plot for others, and at some point the back-and-forth fizzles out – but it’s always been easier for me to organize my thoughts in writing, so I likely feel more comfortable contributing than I might in an in-person meeting.
This is all context for my decision to join my neighborhood book club next month. The club arose some months back out of our community’s Facebook group, a helpful resource run by a go-getting lady a few doors down from us. So far it’s turning out to be a small group of thirty- and fortysomething women who alternate meetings at each other’s houses, and the name they’ve chosen gives an idea of the tone: “Books, Booze and Banter.”
I made the mistake of not getting involved right at the start; I wanted to hang back and see what kind of books they’d choose. This means I wasn’t part of the early process of putting titles in a hat, so I’ve looked on snobbishly for several months as they lurched between crime and women’s fiction, genres I generally avoid. (Still, there were actually a couple books I might have joined them for had I not been in America and had they been readily available at the public library.) For many people a book club selection will be the only book they get through that month, so I can understand how they’d want it to be something ‘readable’ that they’d be happy to pick up anyway. Even though statistically I read 27 books a month, I’m still jealously protective of my reading time; I want everything I read to be worthwhile.
So for September I managed to steer the group away from a poorly received historical novel of over 400 pages and the new Joël Dicker and onto Ladder of Years by Anne Tyler, which the bookstore chain Waterstones has been promoting heavily as one of their books of the month. I already had a charity shop copy in hand and the others liked the sound of it, so we’re all set for September 12th! Future months’ literary fiction choices look promising, too, so provided I enjoy the discussion and the camaraderie I plan to stick with it: a backlist Pat Barker novel I’ve not read, and Kirsty Logan and Jonathan Coe novels I’ve read before and won’t reread but will remind myself about briefly before the meetings.
I’m out of practice with this book club thing. My mother tells me that I have a lot to contribute but that I must also be open to what I’ll learn from other people – even if I don’t expect to. So I don’t want to set myself up as some kind of expert. In fact, I probably won’t even mention that I’m a freelance book reviewer and book blogger. Mostly I’m hoping to find some friendly faces around the neighborhood, because even though we’ve lived here just over two years I still only know a handful of names and keep myself to myself as I work from home. Even if I have to read books I wouldn’t normally, it’ll be worth it to meet more people.
What has your experience with book clubs (in person and online) been?
You Think It, I’ll Say It: Stories by Curtis Sittenfeld
“Oh, our private habits, our private selves—how strange we all are, how full of feelings and essentially alone.”
You could say that Curtis Sittenfeld is the reason I’m a book reviewer. Back when I worked as a library assistant in London, I filled the hours of tedium by writing one- or two-paragraph responses to every book I read, but these just sat in a Word file and never saw the light of day. I had so little confidence in my writing that I didn’t show these proto-reviews to anyone, not even on Goodreads. One day in 2011, though, I saw that Stylist magazine was looking for a temporary books columnist; to be considered you had to submit a 100-word review of your favorite book by a woman. I chose Sittenfeld’s American Wife, her masterfully introspective 2008 novel from the perspective of a fictionalized Laura Bush. It was great practice in being concise, that’s for sure, and Stylist chose me as a finalist. (You can see my 100-word review here.) From there it went to public voting on the website. Alas, I didn’t win, but it was the first time I got recognition for a book review, and I was hooked. When I left my job in 2013 to go freelance, I was determined that reviewing would be part of my work.
Sittenfeld is still one of my favorite authors, and I’ve read everything she’s written. Like Maggie O’Farrell and Carolyn Parkhurst, her work is perfectly balanced between women’s fiction and literary fiction and she describes families and romantic relationships expertly, in prose so deliciously smooth it slides right down. If you’re a fan of her novels, I would certainly recommend these 11 short stories to you. They’re about marriage, parenting, authenticity, celebrity and social media in Trump’s America, with the two key recurring elements of role reversal and retrospect.
The opening story, “The Nominee,” which only appears in the U.K. edition, feels like a natural follow-up to American Wife. Though never named, the narrator is clearly Hillary Clinton, and in a voice that’s consistent with her memoirs she ponders her struggle to earn popular appeal: “The typical American voter doesn’t wish to share a beer with me.” It’s 2016 and she’s about to be interviewed by a younger female journalist who has written about her dozens of times. Back in 2002 she was compassionate when this journalist fell apart during an interview, but she knows not to expect the same courtesy in return. No, she fully expects to be burned. But still the nominee truly believes she’ll win, as the opposite outcome would be catastrophic.
Yet that’s the reality in the final story, “Do-Over,” which was shortlisted for this year’s Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award. In the wake of Trump’s election, Clay hears from Sylvia, a high school classmate, out of the blue and meets up with her for dinner in Chicago. She’s still sore about the sexist nature of the election at Bishop Academy in which, despite having tied, she was given the patronizing, made-up role of “assistant prefect” while Clay was named senior prefect. Sylvia has engineered this fake date as a gift to herself, to see what could happen, and she’s going to behave as badly as she wants.
The role reversal is clearest in “Gender Studies” and “A Regular Couple.” In the former, Nell, a gender studies professor, accidentally uses a taxi driver for sex. In the latter, Maggie is on her honeymoon with Jason; though they’re both lawyers, she recently handled a sportsman’s rape trial and earns 20 times what Jason does in nonprofit immigration law. There’s another flipping of positions in this one: among the other honeymooners at their ski resort is Ashley Frye, who was one of the popular girls at Maggie’s high school and made her feel awkward and inferior. But Maggie’s TV appearances have given her an aura of celebrity: now she’s the popular one, and she has an idea for how to get revenge on Ashley.
The most similar to Sittenfeld’s early fare is “Vox Clamantis in Deserto,” in which a college student loses her virginity under bizarre circumstances in 1994. Several stories involve a dual time setting: a decade or more later, characters reflect on the strange turns their lives have taken to get them where they are now and have a chance to rethink the decisions they made.
My favorite single story is “Plausible Deniability,” the only time I can think of that Sittenfeld has used a male point-of-view. The narrator is William, a 41-year-old lawyer in St. Louis who has distinctly different relationships with his brother and his sister-in-law. There’s a clever surprise in this one, as there is later on in “The Prairie Wife,” and it makes you ask about the various ways there are of being close with another person.
Other stories concern new mothers’ guilt and compromises, the temptation of adultery, and the danger of jealousy and making up your mind about someone too soon. I was less sure about “Volunteers Are Shining Stars,” voiced by a character with OCD and set among African-Americans at a family shelter in Washington, D.C., and I thought “Off the Record” was a bit too similar to “The Nominee.” Overall, though, this is a whip-smart, current and relatable book, ideal for readers who don’t think they like short stories.
My rating: 
You Think It, I’ll Say It is published in the UK today, May 3rd, by Doubleday. My thanks to the publisher for the free review copy.
Third Blog Anniversary
Hard to believe, but I’ve only been blogging for three years as of today. It feels like something I’ve been doing forever, but at the same time I still consider myself a newbie. This is my 382nd post, so I’ve been keeping up an average of 2.5 posts a week.
By Joey Gannon from Pittsburgh, PA (Candles) [CC BY-SA 2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons.
I’ve particularly enjoyed doing author Q&As and highlighting seasonal reads, novellas, books about cats, and physical book traits. I especially like writing up bookshop visits and other literary travels, and discussing literary prizes. My supply of graphic novels seems to have dried up; for new releases I focus on literary fiction, historical fiction and memoirs.
Straightforward book reviews have always been less popular than book lists and other more tangentially book-related posts. Library Checkout posts are consistently well-liked, as were the “Books in Brief” sets of five mini-reviews I used to do. As I’ve noted before, my posts on abandoned books are always perversely popular.
Some of my favorite posts from the past year were on World Kidney Day, Mother–Daughter Author Pairs, and Book Hoarding, and my review in verse of Jonathan Eig’s Ali: A Life.
The numbers of likes seem to be less than informative as they simply reflect a growing number of followers – many of my recent posts have averaged 20–25 likes – so I prefer to look at comments, as it means people are truly reading and engaging. In terms of numbers of comments, my top posts of all time appeared in the last year and were:
- Bibliotherapy appointment
- Books in Brief, May 2017 (featuring books by Sebastian Barry, Tracy Chevalier, Thomas H. Cook, Nicole Gulotta and Elizabeth Hay)
- (Tied for 3rd) Booker Longlist 2017 & Jacob’s Room Is Full of Books review
Thanks to everyone who has supported me this past year, and/or all three years, by visiting the site, commenting, re-tweeting, and so on. You’re the best!
Bookish Beck = Rebecca Foster. American transplant to England. Freelance proofreader and book reviewer.
Bookish Beck 