Taking a break from beach reads to indulge in the delicious brouhaha over Colm Toíbín's apparently casual remark (in an interview) about certain genre fiction. It stirred up a hornet's nest of highly entertaining writer-on-writer ripostes now spreading through grapevines of the book world.
The original exchange was in a piece in the Guardian
Q. Which books do you feel are most overrated?
A. I can’t do thrillers and I can’t do spy novels. I can’t do any genre-fiction books, really, none of them. I just get bored with the prose. I don’t find any rhythm in it. It’s blank, it’s nothing; it’s like watching TV.
Oops. Well. Harumph! It would seem that some writers of
thrillers and
spy novels and some aficionados of fine television as well were not all on vacation from at least the book review section of the Guardian that weekend. The backlash has been.. well, thrilling...
Tóibín’s criticism prompted an immediate backlash on social media from some high-profile fellow writers. Marian Keyes, in a veiled reference to his bestselling novel, Brooklyn, tweeted: “Sez the lad who wrote a Maeve Binchy pastiche and managed to persuade people it was literary fiction.” “How disappointing. His loss, however,” tweeted Liz Nugent.
Stephen Fry wrote: “I love you Colm, but really? Try @LeeChildReacher (and James Lee Burke as @PhilipPullman suggests). And John Le Carré, Len Deighton, Mick Herron and … Graham Greene? A major minor writer is usually so much more rewarding than a minor major one...”
Looks like everyone forgives a personal preference but when a writer whose stuff gets tagged into the "literary fiction" category takes a perceived swipe at whole other genres, look out.
On the other hand, some writers and book club hosts have rung in to say they think the backlash is overdone or childish. That includes John Banville who was once himself criticized for having appeared to downgrade genre fiction in remarking that as a recognized author of literary works he managed output of around 100 words a day but could crank out 2000 words a day writing "crime fiction" under the pseudonym of Benjamin Black...
Others also came to Tóibín's defence on social media, including RTE Gold presenter Rick O'Shea, who has been hosting the hugely successful Rick O'Shea Book Club since 2014.
"The crucifixion I see Colm Toibin getting in the @ROSBookClub and elsewhere is boggling," he wrote.
"He doesn't find anything in thrillers/spy novels. He's not saying they're crap, that's a personal reading choice, right? I read very few thrillers either. So?"
My my. For me this row is better than at least the reviews of half the beach reads I've stashed on the bedside table for the summer and mostly left unread. I wonder if this could be because I took the word of no less than the editors of the damn Daily Beast:
Journeys filled with mouthwatering delicacies and hair-raising adventures. Family secrets. Hidden desires and criminal cover-ups. Missing girls. (Always, so many missing girls.) Forays into sin and redemption. Fantastical worlds found at the border… and in Florida. Stories of love and loss and love found again. Journeys from Russia to Mongolia, Zambia to the Netherlands, and all across the United States.
These are the scenes and stories that will populate your memories of the summer of 2019 when you spend the long, hot days diving into the best new reads of the season. (Editor’s note: This list pairs best with a sandy beach.)
