In a bizarre miscalculation, the historical novelist Philippa Gregory took a sideswipe at the authors of genre novels in an interview with the New York Times yesterday. “Choosing to write a genre novel is like fencing the universe because you are afraid of space,” said Gregory, loftily. “Why does anyone write lazy, sloppy genre novels? The typing alone is so exhausting — surely if you’re going to undertake 150,000 words, you might as well have something interesting to say?”
Quite apart from the fact that every piece of writing falls into one genre or another, the comment is bizarre first because of who Gregory is. The author of The Other Boleyn Girl, The Taming of the Queen, and most recently The Last Tudor, Gregory writes historical fiction – and is indisputably a genre novelist herself. You know what you’re going to get when you pick up a Philippa Gregory novel – and I write that as someone who has read a fair few of them.
It becomes even more bizarre when, in the same interview, Gregory goes on to name her favourite fictional hero as a Georgette Heyer gent: Vidal, in Devil’s Cub. Not that he isn’t a great choice – I cannot think of many more enduring pleasures than curling up with a Heyer novel – but Heyer is the undisputed queen of the Regency romance, and even said herself: “I ought to be shot for writing such nonsense, but it’s unquestionably good escapist literature.” So Gregory clearly enjoys reading “lazy, sloppy” genre writing herself.
It’s also a miscalculation because I’d say the readers of her books include a vast swath of romance readers. Romantic relationships between the kings and queens of yore are generally at the heart of Gregory’s novels.
Many of these readers aren’t delighted at being written off by her. “This casual dismissal hurts. How do you think your romance reading fans would feel about this?” tweeted California romance bookstore The Ripped Bodice (a place I long to visit). Author Kristan Higgins also went on the attack: “I’ve kind of had it with tawdry, inaccurate historical retellings about Tudors myself”; while Joanne Harris tweeted that “choosing to write a genre novel is like cooking a regional dish. It doesn’t mean you hate the rest of the world... Nor are the basic ingredients limited to one style of cooking.”
It’s common enough for authors to diss genre – look at Isabel Allende throwing shade at crime writers (“I cannot write that kind of book. It’s too gruesome, too violent, too dark; there’s no redemption there”), Curtis Sittenfeld winding up romance authors (“Most romances are badly written...”), and Kazuo Ishiguro fanning flames of righteous anger from fantasy fans (“Will they understand what I’m trying to do, or will they be prejudiced against the surface elements? Are they going to say this is fantasy?”).
But Gregory flings her insults wider than most, managing to write off erotica, crime and romance in one go: “Lord, Lord, tell me! Why does anyone write pornography? If you have the good fortune to find a motif that floats your boat, why would you give it away? Why would you risk it losing its potency? Isn’t good sex so much better than publishing?” she says. “Why do people write crime novels with blindingly obvious murderers? Why do they write love stories with idiotic heroes? … Writing should be both individual and universal.”
At the end of it all, readers shouldn’t be made to feel ashamed about their choices. As author Jaci Burton tweeted, eminently wisely: “You know what’s wonderful about genre fiction? Something for everyone to love. Also, never yuck on someone else’s yum.”
