Reader's Advisory: What's genre got to do with it?

Does genre matter? And why/why not.

Welcome to all the new Stackers and welcome back to those of you who’ve been sticking with me (“Stacking” with me?) as I try to write these newsletters somewhat consistently!

As a writer who writes and has written “everything” and as a reader who reads just about “everything,” I’ve often asked myself “does genre matter?”

I suppose it does when you’re trying to quickly explain what the tone and style of a book are and (from a business perspective) who would want to read a book.

But I’ve also found genres pretty limiting. As a writer, I hold the names of successful writers who write in different genres, for difference audiences, close to my heart as proof that I don’t have to allow genre to define me and my work.

I’ve also asked myself (and others) “does genre matter” as a bookseller (Barnes and Noble for almost a decade in my late teens-early 20s, as well as a local indie bookstore here in New Orleans for a few years) and as a library worker for almost a decade. I was also, very briefly, a literary agent, so I’ve spent the entirety of my adult life using genres to sort books and as shorthand to explain to editors and readers what a book I’m representing or recommending is.

I’ll give you an example from my B&N days that I think about a lot. A new Outlander book by Diana Gabaldon (I think it was Fiery Cross) had recently been published. This was well before the tv show adaptation and in fact, the series would hit more mainstream success around the time of my anecdote, or just after it. A man came up to the info desk to ask for the new book and as I was trained to do, I walked him to the section to hand him the book (“handselling,” as it’s called). Or at least, I tried to walk him to the section and hand him the book. He wouldn’t walk into the Romance aisle with me. He’d read at least 4 previous book in this series and didn’t know it was shelved in the Romance section! I told him it was the same meaty historical series he loved and to meet me back at the info desk so he could pretend he didn’t know where the book had been shelved. (There’s actually a great story on Gabaldon’s website about how she didn’t want the series sold as Romance - she considered them “Big, Fat, Historical Fiction, à la James Clavell and James Michener” - and had to fight B&N to move the series to Fiction).

B&N and most bookstores shelve the Outlander series in Fiction now, which I’ve noticed happens with a lot of “genre” books that reach mainstream success or age into “Literary” or “Classic” status. In some ways, it may be easier or more respectable, but it also feels a bit like “whitewashing” (genrewashing?) the origins of the book. Nevermind that Frankenstein is considered one of the first Science Fiction books and that it’s “infused with elements of the Gothic novel and the Romantic movement.” We don’t have “Gothic Novel” sections (if your bookstore or library has one, let me know), but we may have a “Horror Novel” section. Though, “Horror” is usually more of a movie genre than a book one and often, a horror book would be shelved in Sci-Fi/Fantasy, Mystery/Thriller or just regular Fiction, depending on what other elements it contains.

What is the difference between “genre” and “elements” of novel styles and movements that a book might contain?

This came up recently in conversation about the book Damsel by Evelyn Skye. It’s based on the screenplay that also inspired the Netflix movie, but it’s not a “novelization,” since it’s not based on the film itself. Damsel is pretty firmly in the fantasy genre, I argued and no one in that conversation argued against it being fantasy, but rather whether or not fantasy should be pulled out of Fiction and whether or not it should be shelved with Science Fiction, as it often is in bookstores and libraries.

I generally argue for shelving all Fiction together in a unified section, as it means that an author’s work will be shelved together, whatever genre it is (though different formats/genres like YA, essays and poetry would be somewhere else). And based on space, that’s not usually practical for most bookstores and libraries. Some customers and patrons want to read everything by a particular author, but others frequently want to browse their favorite genres, read other books “like” a book they love.

Another example I’ll give you is Alyssa Cole’s newest book One of Us Knows. Alyssa Cole is one of those authors who I’ll read anything by, no matter the genre (though I haven’t read all her work yet). Her Wikipedia page describes her work well:

Alyssa Cole is an American author of historical, science fiction, and contemporary romance novels. Her stories include diverse casts of characters with a variety of professions, from Civil War spies to modern day epidemiologists. Her romance works explore both straight and gay relationships

I first discovered Cole through her contemporary romance novels, but she also has a historical romance series and historical romance novellas. Her science fiction novels are the YA trilogy she wrote, starting with Radio Silence. (Don’t even get me started on how often “YA” is organized as if it’s a genre when it’s an age level or category of reader, as if YA doesn’t contain genres within it like Sci-Fi, Mystery, Romance). Cole’s also contributed to an anthology of mystery short stories continuing Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple character and has now written two thrillers.

2020’s When No One Is Watching is straight-forwardly a thriller (as it says on the cover), which is generally understood to be a type of Mystery. Thrillers are often (but not always) non-professional detectives, average people thrust into saving themselves and others while figuring out who the killer is and/or bringing them to justice - there is often a lot of gore and violence. A cosy, on the other end of the spectrum, also often has a non-professional detective, but the murder happens off page so the focus is more on the mystery than gore and violence. Thrillers can overlap with Horror whereas cozies usually have cats, bakeries, tea shops and other “cozy” elements and may overlap more with Romance.

Cole’s new book One of Us Knows also has “A Thriller” on the cover and I’d have to concede that that’s probably the best modern category for it, if for no other reason than it will be next to When No One Is Watching on bookshelves. And yet.

As I read, I thought, “wow, this is Speculative Fiction,” or “this is Horror,” and even “I’ve never read anything quite like this.” I would absolutely recommend it, but I would be relying more on my intuition when recommending it to a friend or patron, using what I know about what they’ve read previously instead of focusing on broader genres they might say they’re looking for. For instance, if they say they’re looking for a mystery, I might ask if they’re more in the mood for a thriller or a cozy and I might ask how they feel about psychological horror.

Consider the BISAC Categories, included on the Bookshop page for One of Us Knows: Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, Women, Thrillers - Suspense, Women, Psychological. BISAC Categories are another way to find out more about what genre a book is or what elements a book contains, as are the descriptive headings often included on Copyright pages (assigned by a cataloger at the Library of Congress!). Using Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature because I listened to the audiobook of One of Us Knows through my library, I see a phrase on the copyright page that says: “Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for,” so it doesn’t contain the subject headings that a future edition may provide.

I grabbed the nearest novel at hand, which just so happens to be a copy of Patrick Ness’s The Knife of Never Letting Go, which I haven’t read yet and the subject headings on this Copyright page say: “1. Science fiction. 2. Social problems—Fiction. 3. Telepathy—Fiction. 4. Human-animal communication—Fiction. 5. Space colonies—Fiction.” You can tell a librarian picked those. Often pedantic, librarians are precise and thorough. :)

That may help readers figure out if they’re interested in a book, but I’m not sure it makes it any easier to decide where to shelve a book (though I usually do check the Copyright page if I need to make an argument for moving a novel to another genre).

The Goodreads page for One of Us Knows contains a list of genres that apply (though maybe in a more SEO/chronically online way), including: Thriller, Mystery, Mystery Thriller, Fiction, Adult, Horror, Suspense, Adult Fiction, Audiobook, Mental Health.

One of my favorite parts of Goodreads, even now that it’s owned by Amazon, is that you can see all of the lists that members have a book on - some of these are straight forward and some are absolutely bananas and specific. Lists that include One of Us Knows range from “Mystery/Thriller/Detective Books Featuring and Written by Black Women: Part 5” to “[ATY 2024: Number in Title” to “2024 Gothic.” These lists are delightful and endless rabbit holes to spend time investigating when you’re looking for new books and authors to read.

Well, now that I’ve managed to bring us back to Gothic Fiction, I suppose I should wrap this up. No conclusion really other than take genres as seriously as you want to, but there’s so many ways to describe, classify and organize books.

How do you organize books in your personal libraries? Do you alphabetize by author or title? Do you shelve by genre or type of book? Size or color? I’d really love to know. I’ll try not to judge you if you organize your books by color, I promise.