What’s in a genre? Are Fahrenheit 451 and Slaughterhouse 5 science fiction novels, because they involve a dystopian future and time travel, respectively? Or are they literary novels, because they address big topics and are taught in high schools and universities? Margaret Atwood famously insists she’s not a science fiction author, but fans of The Handmaid’s Tale or Oryx and Crake would likely disagree.
Do these distinctions matter to anyone other than the people who have to sell books? In an article for Lit Hub, Lincoln Michel offers our new favorite POV on genre, starting with his belief that there is no discernible difference between literary and genre fiction.
Michel describes literature as a party and genres as the ways guests group themselves into conversation. “Some in fancy costumes chat in the rose garden,” he says. “Others mutter in the library or laugh together beside the graveyard plot. In each of these different conversations, people expand on each other’s thoughts, rebut, debate, elaborate. This is how I like to think of genres. As different literary conversations, ones that stretch back in time and include not just authors but critics, publishers, and readers. When a critical mass forms—and the conversation is large enough—we have a genre.”
Michel had such conversations with himself when he started working on his novel The Body Scout, which he describes as science fiction body horror baseball noir novel. “I reread my favorite books in those genres and thought about what gaps I saw. Where I could add something,” he explains. “Far from being constraining, these genre labels made my brain buzz with ideas. What is a detective character in baseball setting? What is a femme fatale seen through a science fiction lens? What twist will conjoin the central crime with body horror? The genres helped inspire the characters, setting, and plot.”
