2022 Booker Shortlist - The Trees

[Rose Annable]

lark wrote: "one thought I keep having while reading the comments here is that some of us wonder if such a genre-y book is worthy of a Booker. But this novel isn’t one written by a literary writer trying to wri..."

The exact same thoughts have occurred to me. Generally speaking I dislike the notion of classifying 'genre' fiction (and indeed 'literary' fiction), because I think the term does end up coming with a set of assumptions/expectations/even prejudices attached to it which end up being unhelpful to me when I'm assessing a novel's merits. For me I try to judge purely by what the book does to me - whether that's an emotional response or an intellectual one, or indeed both. For me The Trees has done an enormous amount, more so than many more overtly 'literary' novels, and has clearly produced some very interesting discussions, and if anything its use of genre conventions is just another sign of Everett's skill and creativity, not a black mark against it regarding its status as a Booker book. I think authors should be applauded for taking on genre conventions and making new, and it ought to be acknowledged that that takes an awful lot of talent, just as much as producing something more obviously 'literary', I would go so far as to argue. I would have thought anyone with critical thinking skills is capable of understanding the difference between something purely 'genre', and something like The Trees, or any of the fantastic horror or scifi out there which does much the same regarding use of genre. I often think terms like 'genre' and 'literary' can start to hold us back when we start to rely on them too much in our judgements.

[Lark]

Rose Annable wrote: "I often think terms like 'genre' and 'literary' can start to hold us back when we start to rely on them too much in our judgements. ..."

I agree but also I think Everett is deliberately forcing us, with this novel, to explore the question "what is art?" in a way that contemporary fine art has been asking us to consider for a while.

[Elizabeth]

WndyJW wrote: "I think too though, that most Americans consider themselves, or strive to be anti-racist. It’s the vocal minority and the party in power that is so ugly. Which is not to say there isn’t still a lot of educating that needs to happen. Linda honestly and courageously said she knows she has hidden biases, we all do. Few of us really contemplate where we could improve.

So I think the question we're returning to is whether books like this, with this sort of satire, will actually make more people look at themselves, and think about how to improve. I'm sure that's the intent, but:
1. Realistically, only certain types of people will even think to pick up Black literature, and it becomes preaching to the choir.
2. Like the comments above are saying, making the white characters so stereotypical (even including a Trump-like figure for readers to be disgusted by!) is really separating white liberals from any sort of self-reflection.

So what does a book need to be to create real change in white readers? I loved this story, and the revenge was cathartic, but in the end for most readers it's just reaffirming what we already think we know.

[Rose Annable]

lark wrote: "Rose Annable wrote: "I often think terms like 'genre' and 'literary' can start to hold us back when we start to rely on them too much in our judgements. ..."

I agree but also I think Everett is de..."

Oh absolutely. One of the common issues around The Trees regarding it being a Booker book seems to be the fact that it's quite an easy, quick read, compared to some of the others on the longlist which are potentially weightier in various ways. It raises the question of whether something which is easy to read or is directly engaging with genre conventions is therefore not 'high art' in the way that something which requires you to have a dictionary on hand at all times might be. There's a wonderfully condescending review of Colson Whitehead's Zone One somewhere which is one of my favourite pieces of writing which (sort of) grapples with the bridge between 'genre' and 'literary', and how precisely we decide what counts as 'art' and what counts as 'entertainment' - another dichotomy which seems to get raised a lot, just because you could read something while sitting on the beach for a couple of days, does that mean it isn't art?

That being said, I really don't understand modern fine art at all hahah I'm willing to admit that my brain does automatically snap to 'this isn't art' and refuses to go any further

[Lark]

Elizabeth wrote: "I loved this story, and the revenge was cathartic, but in the end for most readers it's just reaffirming what we already think we know. .."

Fiction seems to have for the most part let go of the idea it's meant to function as social criticism. For me the last novel I've read that tackled social criticism in a visceral direct way, one that led me to take political action in the real world, was Preparation for the Next Life by Atticus Lish.

Personally I seem to think social realism is the only style that has a hope of changing minds--where people read it and say 'this is real, this is happening in my world.' as it happened with The Grapes of Wrath, The Jungle, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

I'm not familiar with books from other countries to know which ones had this level of impact outside of their pages.

[Alwynne]

lark wrote: "Elizabeth wrote: "I loved this story, and the revenge was cathartic, but in the end for most readers it's just reaffirming what we already think we know. .."

Fiction seems to have for the most par..."

Of course there is the issue that fiction is fairly peripheral, particularly literary fiction, online influencers, to a lesser extent television all play a much larger role in shaping the popular imagination, than books. And the books that do have a capacity for making a wider impact are the very commercial, genre-led titles. But I don't personally go with this whole art/commercial divide, commercial fiction, television etc are quite capable of representing complex issues and, importantly, making them accessible.

[Alwynne]

Elizabeth wrote: "WndyJW wrote: "I think too though, that most Americans consider themselves, or strive to be anti-racist. It’s the vocal minority and the party in power that is so ugly. Which is not to say there is..."

I agree.

[David]

Alwynne wrote: "I think age can be too sweeping as a way of thinking about this"

Agree entirely.

[David]

lark wrote: "one thought I keep having while reading the comments here is that some of us wonder if such a genre-y book is worthy of a Booker. But this novel isn’t one written by a literary writer trying to write a genre book. It’s a literary writer using genre conventions as a literary technique to explore themes that no genre book ever would be interested in. That puts it in a different category for me, like a work of art that uses everyday objects like shoes or knitting needles or old photographs in a new context, to say something new."

This is a great comment. It's precisely what I've been trying to articulate in my own thoughts but I was struggling to find the right analogy.

[Joy D]

To me this is a literary book providing social commentary. A genre book would not contain such an ambiguous and thought-provoking ending.

I lived many years in the southern US (now live in the west) and I can say even though racism is not limited to the south, it is much more obvious and blatant in the south (not so much in the big cities but in the rural areas where education is sketchy at best).

The following states have banned critical race therory: Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Iowa, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, and Tennessee. many more have bills awaiting legislative approval.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/sta...

[Alwynne]

Rose Annable wrote: "lark wrote: "one thought I keep having while reading the comments here is that some of us wonder if such a genre-y book is worthy of a Booker. But this novel isn’t one written by a literary writer ..."

I agree Rose, I also struggle with the notion that the Booker Prize represents 'high art' whatever that may be!

Also couldn't help noticing that at least two of the novels referred to as leading to social change were very much published as commercial fiction for wide readerships. And at times when there was little other competing media.

Recently the books that have done more in relation to changing attitudes that I can think of are titles like Angie Thomas's The Hate U Give - also YA which is another category widely disparaged for no apparent reason - and in the UK the non-fiction Why I'm No Longer Talking to White People About Race which started out life as an online blog.

And, I think I see what you're getting at Joy, but surely there are plenty of terrible so-called "literary" titles in circulation, it's also a genre and just as variable in quality than any other?

[Joy D]

Alwynne wrote: "And, I think I see what you're getting at Joy, but surely there are plenty of terrible so-called "literary" titles in circulation, it's also a genre and just as variable in quality than any other?.."

I am sure that is true. I guess what I am trying to say is that if you read genre detective/crime fiction, The Trees is not typical. Most of those do not engage in social commentary - they are more for "entertainment." I think "literary fiction" (for lack of a better term) tries to illuminate some aspect of humankind or society and tends to be more thought-provoking in nature.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I agree on those two books Alwynne - and maybe GWO for the way the author used her win to gain a social platform.

[Rose Annable]

Alwynne wrote: "Rose Annable wrote: "lark wrote: "one thought I keep having while reading the comments here is that some of us wonder if such a genre-y book is worthy of a Booker. But this novel isn’t one written ..."

This is an issue which constantly fascinates me. Last year one of my final undergrad modules was in contemporary fiction and this was a topic which naturally came up a fair bit, and nobody could ever agree on it. My take is that 'literary' fiction is not a genre. If you asked 100 people to describe any genre you'd probably get a pool of the same stuff ('magic, wizards, dragons', 'aliens, robots, space', 'murder, crime, clues'). If you asked the same about 'literary fiction' you would get everything from 'intellectual, elevated language' to 'pretentious, boring.' What's more a lot of 'literary' fiction does also fit into a genre, it's just that there's something about it which people instinctively separate off from 'genre' fiction. It's worth mentioning that a lot of it is just marketing - I seem to remember Nick Hornby saying that in the UK High Fidelity was marketed as commercial fiction, whereas in the States it was marketed as literary fiction, which was purely down to how many people wanted to read it! Commercial = lots of people buy it, literary = smaller target audience.

I think there's a wider issue here to do with the meaning (or lack thereof) of literary prizes in general - though I find them interesting I do also fundamentally find them to be nonsense, ranking art does to some extent seem like a total waste of time (I recognise this may not be a widely held view on here!), and reading solely from book prize lists feels very limiting. For what it's worth I think I've only studied 2/3 Booker winners across my undergrad and now my MA in 20th + 21st century lit, suggesting that outside a niche group of people it doesn't necessarily hold all that much standing within the landscape of how contemporary literature is being thought about.

Also totally agree regarding YA, I knew someone during my undergrad who wrote their dissertation on YA fiction, specifically looking at it as a genre which currently has a particularly powerful ability to change attitudes - The Hate U Give was a focal point there I believe. I have to say I am probably massively biased here, as I am currently writing my MA dissertation on the relationship between Shakespeare and 21st century television, so am clearly inclined to lean towards the value of art forms outside of what is currently accepted as 'high art', whatever that may be!

[Paul]

One of the judges, M John Harrison, who is nominally a fantasy/sci-fii/horror writer, comments a lot on genre, and how the best fiction takes a genre and subverts it. And also how literary fiction can easily become a reductive genre of its own.

From different interviews around the time of his last book:

A good ground rule for writing in any genre is: start with a form, then undermine its confidence in itself. Ask what it's afraid of, what it's trying to hide – then write that.

…

My urge is less to transgress genre boundaries than insult them ... writing specifically for a genre isn't just reductive, it's an attempt to hide, a form of cowardice. It's special pleading, but it doesn't work.

…

Quite a number of novels don’t sit well in their genre of origin. They have that air of distraction, of being occupied with other business. They stay with you, and you
wonder why. Those are the books I’d like to be writing.

…

Traditionally, innovative writing is a reconnaissance. It confers fresh perspective on the human subject, invents a way to capture the evidence of change a little way in advance. Or does it? Perhaps it’s collateral to change, perhaps one of the things it does is to express an anxiety about change that’s already in progress: thus accelerating social processes out of its own nervous anticipation of the possibility of change to come.

[Alwynne]

Joy D wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "And, I think I see what you're getting at Joy, but surely there are plenty of terrible so-called "literary" titles in circulation, it's also a genre and just as variable in quality ..."

Rose I think my idea of genre is possibly broader than what you have in mind - modernism is a genre, Victorian fiction is a genre etc. And, of course, genre is an interesting concept, and quite a slippery one. Other than that I think we pretty much coincide.

Joy I have to completely disagree with you re: crime fiction, though.

Crime writers or writers who have dabbled in the genre who write/have written thought-provoking work related to social issues/justice/social and cultural/historical critique:

Maj Sjöwall

John Le Carre

Graham Greene

Attica Locke

Laila Lalami

Chester Himes

Nancy Jooyoun Kim

Steph Cha

Walter Mosley

Carl Hiaasen

Henning Mankell

Sara Paretsky

Elmore Leonard

Abir Mukherjee

Georges Simenon

China Mieville

Tom Robb Smith

Brian McGilloway

Jake Arnott

David Peace

Seicho Matsumoto

I could go on adding names for quite some time but crime fiction is widely considered particularly productive in terms of its ability to reflect and comment on numerous aspects of contemporary society.

Yes, it should be entertaining but what book shouldn’t? If we mean by that the ability to command a reader’s attention and stimulate their imagination, I find Ulysses entertaining, as I do most of Woolf if they bored me, I wouldn’t read them. Different books offer up different forms of entertainment.

But entertainment in crime fiction doesn’t preclude the ability to deal with complex issues around the criminal justice system, racism, the legacy of slavery, domestic violence, the aftermath of war, Sweden’s crumbling democracy, crumbling inner cities, social inequalities, the impact of poverty, the ethics of international aid, the damage wrought by the British Empire, environmental blight, political corruption, corporate greed, homophobia, gender roles, decaying communities in Kentucky etc

[Elizabeth]

Paul wrote: "One of the judges, M John Harrison, who is nominally a fantasy/sci-fii/horror writer, comments a lot on genre, and how the best fiction takes a genre and subverts it. And also how literary fiction ..."

What fascinating quotes, Paul, I’m going to be sitting on this for a while. (And now I want to read M. John Harrison. I don’t remember what brought me to reserve Light last month, since from the blurb it seems like a space opera, or cyberpunk, neither of which I typically read, but it’s now sitting on my night table. I’ll have to see if it does actually subvert genre.)

[Joy D]

Funny thing about your list, Alwynne, is that I wouldn't call them genre. I'd call them literary. (I haven't read them all, but have read a good number).

"But entertainment in crime fiction doesn’t preclude the ability to deal with complex issues around the criminal justice system, racism, the legacy of slavery, domestic violence, the aftermath of war, Sweden’s crumbling democracy, crumbling inner cities, social inequalities, the impact of poverty, the ethics of international aid, the damage wrought by the British Empire, environmental blight, political corruption, corporate greed, homophobia, gender roles, decaying communities in Kentucky etc"

I agree. I think what you are calling genre I am calling literary.

[Alwynne]

Joy D wrote: "Funny thing about your list, Alwynne, is that I wouldn't call them genre. I'd call them literary. (I haven't read them all, but have read a good number)."

In that case is it possible your conception of the crime-writing genre is unusually exclusive? They are all known for writing crime fiction that falls within that genre/numerous subgenres, the ones who are alive regularly contribute to festivals of crime writing, Mieville also does the rounds of the SF/fantasy groups as some of his work is more SF, some more crossover. And except for the ones that have now been republished in classics ranges are commonly shelved in the crime fiction sections of bookshops. Although Graham Greene was so prolific his work encompassed a variety of genres. Most can also be found on reading lists for university modules on crime fiction, and in various academic studies of crime writing/thrillers etc

[Joy D]

Graham Greene is widely considered literary among the crime genre readers I know. Very few will read him these days when I suggest it. I am not sure how to answer your question. I don't consider my taste unusually exclusive, but maybe others would. The authors that get accepted are those like Turow or Connelly.

[Alwynne]

I guess what I am trying to say is that if you read genre detective/crime fiction, The Trees is not typical. Most of those do not engage in social commentary - they are more for "entertainment."

At the risk of sounding churlish it does sound as if your classificatory system is a tad idiosyncratic in that it sounds as if when you think a writer fulfils your criteria of saying something thought-provoking, deals with complex issues etc you don't regard their work as residing within the traditions of a particular genre or do that thing of talking about work that transcends genre boundaries. And conversely if something doesn't meet your personal literary standards dismiss it as representative of genre fiction which you've stated is purely for entertainment and has no other intrinsic value. But genre fiction just like work that is marketed solely as literary fiction, varies in quality, with some very good work and some not so good. And therefore should not be dismissed out of hand.

[Paul]

To me genre is largely around conventions. So there is a genre of crime novel where there is a mystery to be solved and the end of the book has to give a solution which makes sense and which in theory we might have been able to guess etc

Eg TS Eliot’s rules below - I would say a book that follows those (and the 2nd and 5th are most common) is genre. Books that, as in Harrison’s take, set out to subvert the rules are less genre.

The story must not rely upon elaborate and incredible disguises….Disguises must be only occasional and incidental.”

“The character and motives of the criminal should be normal. In the ideal detective story we should feel that we have a sporting chance to solve the mystery ourselves; if the criminal is highly abnormal an irrational element is introduced which offends us.”

“The story must not rely either upon occult phenomena or, which comes to the same thing, upon mysterious and preposterous discoveries made by lonely scientists.”

“Elaborate and bizarre machinery is an irrelevance….Writers who delight in treasures hid in strange places, cyphers and codes, runes and rituals, should not be encouraged.”

“The detective should be highly intelligent, but not superhuman. We should be able to follow his inferences and almost, but not quite, make them with him.”

[Alwynne]

Paul wrote: "To me genre is largely around conventions. So there is a genre of crime novel where there is a mystery to be solved and the end of the book has to give a solution which makes sense and which in the..."

But, of course, working within conventions or in relation to a set of conventions doesn't mean that a writer doesn't have interesting things to say or manage to do interesting things with those conventions. And Eliot was an appalling snob!

[Joy D]

Alwynne wrote: "But genre fiction just like work that is marketed solely as literary fiction, varies in quality, with some very good work and some not so good. And therefore should not be dismissed out of hand..."
I agree.

[WndyJW]

Are the lines between genre and not genre blurring? If a book has a crime in it, that’s not necessarily a novel in the crime genre, same with mystery or romance. I think of genre as a style of writing in which the author intentionally uses the expected tropes knowing their targeted audience will enjoy that. Which is not to say a genre book must follow a formula.

The romance genre formula of person A finds person B, person A loses person B, person A wins back the heart of person B is romance genre that is not literary. A novel that has a love story in it, say my favorite The Bridge of Beyond is not a romance genre, but much of the story is about a difficult relationship between lovers, it is also about the legacy of slavery, and it’s beautifully written. So definitely a literary novel.

[WndyJW]

Regarding age and awareness of the history of race I agree with David and I agree, Alwynne, that there were many people in my generation aware of racism and working to fight it. I think what David means is even young people who aren’t particularly engaged with current social issues are aware of more than we were at that age because of social media. Young people, all people really, are aware of police murders, not guilty verdicts, BLM marches turned violent because of cops and White Supremacists, in real time.
The previous generations could simply not bother to find out.

[Roman Clodia]

Alwynne wrote: "And Eliot was an appalling snob!"

Not only was he a snob but he was writing close to 100 years ago now, and reflects his moment in time. The 'rules' of literature are not fixed and solid, and neither are the boundaries of genre or what constitutes so-called 'literary' writing. Jane Austen fits perfectly the definition above of 'romance genre formula' but that doesn't prevent wider social commentary in her books.

The very tenets of postmodernism involve genre, and any deconstruction and parody means you have to understand the conventions fully first before you can disrupt them - just as a Picasso, say, has to understand classical techniques before smashing them to pieces.

This debate about genre vs. not genre and exactly what genre is is as old as written literature - Ovid is not alone in his Metamorphoses from the turn of the millennium which evokes and playfully incorporates and interrogates, and frequently overturns, ideas of genre.

There's a massive and ongoing academic literature on this very topic (my own interest is in genre and gender), and a resistance to the unhelpful hierarchical nature of traditional genre classifications. A helpful 'quick and dirty' book is Modern Genre Theory.

[Ruben]

This debate reminds me of when His Bloody Project: Documents Relating to the Case of Roderick Macrae and The North Water were longlisted and people, including me, were happy with the jury's open mind. However a year or so later Snap was nominated and I hope we all agree that went a bit too far. That has nothing to do with being snobbish or not, there is simply a limit to the overlap between the categories and the Booker is not there to award excellent thrillers.

For The Trees the discussion for me is actually the opposite: it is excellent Literary Fiction but I can see people looking for thrillers/detective novels will be disappointed: the investigative work of our sympathetic detectives is so clearly below par that the crimes should have been solved at page 50. A similar fate befell Katie Kitamura's A Separation: billed as a thriller but actually a beautiful piece of literary fiction that sucks as a thriller - its Goodreads rating today is 2.97 (but perhaps it sold more copies)...

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

So I went to my local Waterstones to get a hard copy as they seem to have cornered all the hard copies going - although I think Amazon has availability from Saturday but could not find it despite the website showing there was a copy, I asked an assistant who liked it up and said it was filed in the Crime section.

Me - that’s probably not the best place to put it
Her - our system says it’s a crime novel

I nearly handed her my phone to read the thread!

[Alwynne]

Priceless!

[Alwynne]

Roman Clodia wrote: "Alwynne wrote: "And Eliot was an appalling snob!"

Not only was he a snob but he was writing close to 100 years ago now, and reflects his moment in time. The 'rules' of literature are not fixed and..."

Also, of course, writing in a time when the literary elite were desperate to elevate their work by representing it in opposition to mass culture and/or the literature of the masses. Jonathan Rose covers this quite well in The Intellectual Life of the British Working Classes although he's building on Carey's rather scorching study of the attitudes and prejudices of Woolf, Eliot etc in The Intellectuals and The Masses: Pride and Prejudice Among the Literary Intelligentsia, 1880 - 1939 It's interesting that these debates/divides over cultural value still persist.

[Laura]

As someone who is researching genre fiction, I'm loving the discussion going on here! I have to say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that if a book is deemed as genre fiction, that means that the book is incapable of conveying complex ideas.

For example, my research is on representations of trauma in the works of Stephen King (who, by all means, would never be considered a literary author). There's been a longtime prevailing idea that trauma, being as complex as it is, can only be represented through highly experimental literary fiction. However, I think conventions of "lowbrow" genres like horror, crime, mystery etc. have the capabilities to represent specific aspects of trauma. And, I think that idea definitely extends to how Everett explores America's history of lynching, and how it haunts the present, through conventions of crime fiction. The line between The Trees as a crime vs. literary novel are certainly blurred, but deeming the novel as a crime novel would not make it less capable of exploring America's repressed past. The idea that genre fiction is all lowbrow, simplistic writing that serves no other purpose than to provide easy holiday reads is a massive oversimplification.

[Alwynne]

WndyJW wrote: "Regarding age and awareness of the history of race I agree with David and I agree, Alwynne, that there were many people in my generation aware of racism and working to fight it. I think what David ..."

I'd love to share your optimism but as a European it's not so clear-cut, in France, for example, far more supporters in younger age groups for far-right politicians than there are in the over-60 age range. In Germany masses of support for AfD from under 30s.

And although there's exposure to examples of prejudice/racism, the question is how that material is interpreted and responded to, particularly when there's also growing exposure to far right groups and agendas - many actively targeting school-age children and above.

[Alwynne]

Laura wrote: "As someone who is researching genre fiction, I'm loving the discussion going on here! I have to say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that if a book is deemed as genre fiction, that means th..."

Totally agree, King's representations of childhood trauma, domestic violence and fractured family in The Shining, for instance, is memorable and powerful.

[Rose Annable]

Laura wrote: "As someone who is researching genre fiction, I'm loving the discussion going on here! I have to say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that if a book is deemed as genre fiction, that means th..."

This sounds fascinating! I have to admit I often struggle with horror in fiction, I tend not to find it very engaging, but I am a long-standing believer in the power of horror in film, particularly body horror, to handle issues (e.g. trauma, especially re the female body) in a way which less genre-specific film couldn’t hope to manage.

[David]

Perhaps I’m just showing my hand as a nominalist but I’m not sure genre is really anything other than a construct by publishers and bookstores to sell books to a targeted audience. If The Trees is shelved in Crime at Waterstones then, well, it’s crime fiction.

[Alwynne]

Rose Annable wrote: "Laura wrote: "As someone who is researching genre fiction, I'm loving the discussion going on here! I have to say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that if a book is deemed as genre fiction,..."

Absolutely, particularly films like 'American Mary' and 'May'. Eliza Clark does something similar in Boy Parts with its play on tropes and concepts from feminist body horror, creepypasta etc And recently Monica Ojeda with Jawbone

[Rose Annable]

Alwynne wrote: "Rose Annable wrote: "Laura wrote: "As someone who is researching genre fiction, I'm loving the discussion going on here! I have to say that I vehemently disagree with the idea that if a book is dee..."

Yes, and actually Boy Parts is one of relatively few novels I can think of which engaged with those concepts which I really loved. There’s a ton of brilliant female created horror in cinema right now (though to some extent I think gendering it ends up being limiting), and I think for me on balance it does a better job at conveying so much about experiencing life as someone female-presenting than pretty much any other art form. Not entirely sure why horror literature doesn’t always work on me the same way, though I have a lot of time for the recent trend of horror/gothic/generally weird short story collections by women.

David wrote: "Perhaps I’m just showing my hand as a nominalist but I’m not sure genre is really anything other than a construct by publishers and bookstores to sell books to a targeted audience. If The Trees is ..."

To some extent I agree, though interestingly when The Trees was initially in Waterstones (pre-Booker), it was with general fiction, not crime! I also wouldn’t actually dispute that the novel is crime, of course it is, it’s directly engaging with the conventions of crime novels, I just don’t necessarily think that means anything when it comes to evaluating a novel’s ‘literariness’. Or rather it does mean a lot, just not necessarily anything diminishing

[WndyJW]

I think Everett would be pleased The Trees was in any section other than African American.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I don’t think Waterstones in my area would have that section Wendy

[WndyJW]

That’s a good thing, it means novels written by black writers are put in the section that most fits the novel and the race of the author is not considered a category.

[Paul]

US bookshops have an African American section?

I am so intrigued by the discussion of this that I can’t wait till it is back in print in the UK. I will keep by order with Influx but have also bought a Kindle copy for the flight back from Korea.

Mind you the last time I was able to come to Korea, pre Covid, was 2019. That year I picked Ducks N to read on the way back and ended up resorting to breaking up passages by reading the inflight mag, the safety card and even the sick bag. Hoping this one is more to my taste!

[Alwynne]

Paul wrote: "US bookshops have an African American section?
.

Waterstones had a Black writers section, not sure if it still does as I haven't used one in ages. I think in American bookshops the policy was supposed to be that books were cross-listed i.e. one copy in the African-American section, one in general fiction and/or genre category but think it doesn't always happen. A lot of authors have been complaining about these policies for years, apparently happens in libraries too.

https://nkjemisin.com/2010/05/dont-pu...

Something I've not seen here in bookshops, but have seen the rough equivalent in shops selling CDs are 'urban sections' which it seems feature in some American libraries i.e:

Urban fiction which the Library of Congress defines as "fiction that features African Americans in inner cities and that generally includes explicit profanity, sex and violence."

[WndyJW]

Yes, there is, or were, African American sections in which the only unifying aspect is they were written by black writers, so Toni Morrison, Octavia Butler, Jesmyn Ward, Colton Whitehead, N.K. Jamison would all be in that area. I think they are shelving SciFi writers of color in SciFi, general fiction in Fiction, books specifically about the black experience in the US are in African American now.

I’ll make a point of seeing what exactly is in the African American section next time I’m in Barnes & Noble.

[Lark]

This part of our conversation reminds me of my trip to Utah where I went to a bookstore and one whole wall was marked “LDS Fiction” and I needed to ask what it was—I’m still not entirely sure what makes a book LDS fiction, though.

[Paul]

To be fair I don’t go on bookshops much so no idea what shelves they have here.

I was impressed by this book though.

[Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer]

I still do not know what LDS is.

[Rose Annable]

Latter Day Saints given Utah I’m assuming? I had no clue there was a large range of Mormon literature though

[Paul]

My eyes aren’t what they were and reading that on a phone screen I thought it was IDS literature. An odd genre that pays tribute to the quiet man of British politics.

[Janet]

Rose Annable wrote: "I am currently writing my MA dissertation on the relationship between Shakespeare and 21st century television, ..."

Rose Annable, I realize this is slightly off topic, but I hope you examine the Shakespearean themes played out in "The Wire" :)

Ok, back to topic, the comments about this book on this forum have been so intriguing that I've ordered a copy and look forward to reading it. Thanks, all!