Literary Romance

[keilexandra]

A question put forth by niladmirari, which I'm unable to answer: are there any purely romance-genre novels out there with redeeming literary value? After my experience with How to Seduce a Duke I'm inclined to answer negatively, but I'm not very well-read in that genre. Anyone?

EDIT: Contemporary romance novels.

Comments

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Pride & Prejudice

[keilexandra]

Okay, maybe I should have clarified (seeing as I'm reading that right now)... contemporary romance novel.

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Ok, then, Possession.

(I would guess you mean more like 'are there any books marketed purely as romance novels that have redeeming literary value?' -- but if they have redeeming literary value, presumably they wouldn't be marketed purely as romance novels.)

[keilexandra]

I could argue that POSSESSION isn't contemporary, being 17 years old... but anyway, that's my point. Romance as a genre has turned into complete fluff, where if a romance novel has literary value it's marketed as something else--mainstream, or historical, or f/sf, whatever.

[inkylj.livejournal.com]

Yeah, and? Genres that overlap the most will tend to be the ones that pull the most from each other; more prestigious genres will pull more from less-prestigious ones than the other way around. Romance is the most relationship-based kind of genre fiction, so it has the most in common with the literature genre, but it pays less (at least for big hits) and is less prestigious, so there you go.

Whether this is a bad thing is another issue. I don't really see why it is -- as a reader I'm not required to only read one genre. Surely it doesn't matter to me how a book is published and marketed so long as it is published. As an author I'm not sure it matters either, as long as my book is marketed as whatever genre will make it sell the most.

Another interesting one to look it might be the "religious fiction" genre, like Left Behind and that kind of thing. That's a pretty exact parallel to romance novels -- stuff only gets marketed there if it can't stand on its own in another genre.

[keilexandra]

There's nothing wrong with crossing genres, for anyone. I certainly do it enough. But my point is that purely romance novels have a bad reputation--they can't be literary, because if they are, the publisher is quick to catagorize it as a more "reputable" genre.

And I agree completely regarding the religious fiction genre. Kind of a stupid catagory IMHO--but that's a whole 'nother story of personal bias.

[oyceter]

Contemporary as in the setting, or as in the era written?

Also, am not quite sure what you mean by literary value?

I've got a sort-of romance conversion kit which links to Mely's kit as well, but a lot of the books on it are historical romance (though written very recently, I think... most were published in the nineties). I will definitely admit that the prose is not the best in most of them, with the exception of Judith Ivory/Judy Cuevas.

Jennifer Crusie would be my best bet for romances set in contemporary times; though I'm not sure if you would count her as literary? I find her very fun, and I like her politics in general though not always.

[keilexandra]

Contemporary as in era written. Recent historicals are fine. I don't really know what I mean by literary value, myself--like, romances with themes other than Tru Wuv or Lust Triumphs Over All. Jenny Crusie would probably qualify, but then she's being marketed as women's fiction now--which is my implication, that publishers move "literary" romances out of the romance genre.

[oyceter]

publishers move "literary" romances out of the romance genre.

*nods* I suspect some authors are moving out of it as well; Connie Brockway mentioned last year that she was leaving romance for "women's fiction" (though last I checked, her latest contemporary was still being shelved with the romances, so I'm not sure how that went for her!). Megan Chance, another of my favorites, also moved out of romance and into general fiction as well. I know Brockway's move was partly because of the genre reaction to her latest (last?) historical, in which I think a good deal of the audience didn't like greyness of the heroine.

I think Judith Ivory is still in romance, as is Laura Kinsale, though they both come out with new books so slowly that it's hard to tell. I know Kinsale got a lot of flack for her latest, also because of the non-vanilla sex (in romance terms, not in fanfic terms). Carla Kelly is also still in romance and publishing series romance (a la Harlequin Regencies and the like).

Of course, my definition here of "literary" is "what I like." ;)

I went to a panel on romance last year at Wiscon, and I think Lyda Morehouse/Tate Hallaway mentioned that a lot of the more boundary-pushing stuff is being published by epublishers and series romance, so I'm probably missing a lot of it.