Say “genre fiction” and you bring to mind books about aliens, about vampires, about mutilation, about kidnapping, about incest, and about straight up good old fashioned murder. You bring up images of mass market trim sizes and covers with foil and embossing and a dark road with maybe the shadow of a tree and noose in the background. You also bring up the idea of books that are more plot driven than character driven, books where the language and syntax sometimes seems ignored, books that rely on cheap thrills more than craft for effect. Say “genre,” and the nice lady talking to you at the dinner party will turn away.

With this in mind, I’m going to describe a book, and I’d like you to tell me if it fits in “genre.” Here goes:

After a catastrophic nuclear event, America has become a vast, deadly field of starvation, crime, and man-against-man contests for survival. Through this wasteland, a man and his young son walk along the left over roads of America, confronting their basic fears and searching through the rubble of civilization for hope.

Know the book? It’s one of the best genre books to be published in the last twenty, if not fifty years. It has murder, suspense. It has mutilation and cannibalism. It sold incredibly well—about a million copies so far according to Bookscan. It’s a page turner: Everybody I know read it in forty-eight hours, and passed it on to everybody they knew. Its author won a well-deserved Pulitzer, as well as a spot on Oprah’s list.

Know the book? It’s The Road, by Cormac McCarthy, and I swear it’s as genre as they come.

Here’s my argument. It’s the argument at the center of what I do and what I’m interested in, and it’s the creative push behind Underland Press. Here’s the argument: A genre is a body of work defined by similar characteristics. A category is a marketing niche. The two things should not be confused.  

When I say genre fiction, I mean fiction that takes on weird and scary subjects. I mean books about aliens, apocalypse, vampires, mutilation, kidnapping, incest, and murder. Weird is my genre. Horror, fantasy, dark fantasy, those are my categories, my BISAC codes, my cover designs. When I say genre, I do not mean fiction that ignores craft in favor of the cheap, easy thrill. The word “genre” does not imply a license to ignore character entirely, nor does it allow a writer to write badly. When I say genre, I mean books that entertain me. Books that I can pass with confidence to my friends and family members. Books that keep me coming back. And yes, sometimes books that make the nice lady at the dinner party turn away.
    
Argue with me. This is slippery terrain, and it’s something I think about a lot. How do you define it? What do you mean?

Posted by: Victoria Blake