Thank you for writing this!! I have very little insider knowledge of the publishing industry, but I've always felt that Sally Rooney's popularity was, yes, about the quality of her writing, but more about her subject: love and relationships, the fact that (and I haven't read Intermezzo!) she's very much in conversation with romance. As far as I can tell, contemporary literary fiction doesn't have a robust pool of romance-adjacent writers, like it does, say, speculative writers (Kelly Link, George Saunders etc). Rooney is the main one who comes to mind. Why isn't publishing building that camp of writers? (maybe they are?) I think what happened is Normal People had a lot of crossover with romance readers who craved literary prose and deep psychological character portraits. Instead of replicating Rooney herself, i don't know why the publishing industry isn't trying to respond to the appetite she clearly feeds (also see, Emily Henry, Carly Fortune, who are proving a huge market for upmarket romance with a slightly more elevated prose styles). My completely lay opinion is that I think there's an underfed appetite for literary stories where the romance plot takes up a lot space and doesn't end badly lol but maybe I'm just speaking for myself. Whenever I pick up litfic with a love story, a lot of times I feel it flinching away from the romance at some points, whereas Rooney leans into it, doesn't flinch from the fantasy of it, even if her prose itself is restrained. Romance is wildly popular, but it's been largely cultivated in commercial or upmarket spaces. I truly think Rooney tapped into this pre-existing popularity with a literary flare. And I totally agree that litfic should be learning from genre/commercial fiction!
I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING. Why can’t we have sprayed edges? I got Garth Greenwell’s CLEANNESS as a special edition from Waterstones; it had sprayed edges. I want midnight parties, people gathering (in masks, please), and books as beautifully designed as they are written. I want it all.
This is everything I've been thinking about, specifically the championing of indie literary fiction, those like me who are going it alone and aware of the barriers to visibility. Readers know when they're being pandered to - yes! And readers of literary fiction want the good stuff, but how and where do they find it? My new novel is out next January, and for this one I've hired a publicity agency to run a campaign, just to see if I can break through and reach people. I'll be reporting on my progress here on Substack.
Last year, I started revisiting classics and high school required reading lists. I suspect it had something to do with wanting to feel “smarter” or more capable of absorbing those works now that I’m older. I tell my CW students, “Readers want to feel smart. If there’s any feeling you want them to feel, let it be that.” Something I notice about “popular” literary fiction is it is often very accessible on the level of the line (Normal People, The Road, Never Let Me Go). I’m not saying that literary fiction of today is missing that key element, but I understand why books like The Song of Achilles sell REALLY well while others might fall flat.
I find this all so helpful. People say to me all the time that "nobody reads anymore," and "nothing gets published" (oh so helpful). But literally every day I read lists in NYT, Washington Post, The Guardian, et al. -- lists of books! mostly new! I belong to a book club, and some of my clubmates belong to two! They are reading books! Yes, I know it's hard. And I think people are trying to buffer/baffle me from the hard fact that it is hard -- i.e., it's not about me, people don't read. Or whatever. And I keep returning to my own home base: write the best thing I can write, "trust God and the creek don't rise" (my Gramma's way of saying that there is a lot of luck involved). Thank you!
Love hearing your thoughts on this! I think publishers need to (and are beginning to) realise that just because a certain book was marketed in a certain way and a certain video around it went viral doesn’t mean you can reproduce that for every book and get the same results. A type of video promoting a fantasy book won’t work the same with a literary fiction book, because the audiences are so different. Literary fiction fans are a big part of booktok, it’s the side I’m on and what fills my fyp, publishers just need to tap into it more.
I’m in the camp of Sally Rooney is popular because she has a unique voice and writes about universal themes of love and relationships- I also really enjoyed the Normal People adaptation and it made me go back and read the book multiple times. I’ve only read the excerpt of Intermezzo that was published in The New Yorker but I certainly expect I will like it too. I’m very invested in the future of literary fiction, I have a lifelong love of reading and I enjoy discussing the books I read with my book club and other friends who buddy read certain books with me- one of my college friends and I don’t talk much about our personal lives but have ongoing text commentary about the books we are reading here 14 years after graduating (she also loves Sally Rooney). I also think Sally Rooney does lean into the romance of her stories and as a romance reader, it does make her work more appealing to me. I find romance to be a much maligned genre where some truly great work is being done over the last 10 years especially (see BIPOC authors Kennedy Ryan, Jasmine Guillory, Alisha Rai, Tia Williams). Emily Henry is also an author who got popular on Booktok but whose writing style I truly enjoy- Book Lovers is legitimately one of only 10 books I would call a 5 star read for me in the last 5 years.
I think there’s something about literary fiction that presents itself as being smarter than the average reader, and it can be a bit of a turnoff. Sally Rooney (at least in Normal People) captures the pleasures that readers get from genre fiction without sacrificing the depth of literary fiction.
Thank you for writing this!! I have very little insider knowledge of the publishing industry, but I've always felt that Sally Rooney's popularity was, yes, about the quality of her writing, but more about her subject: love and relationships, the fact that (and I haven't read Intermezzo!) she's very much in conversation with romance. As far as I can tell, contemporary literary fiction doesn't have a robust pool of romance-adjacent writers, like it does, say, speculative writers (Kelly Link, George Saunders etc). Rooney is the main one who comes to mind. Why isn't publishing building that camp of writers? (maybe they are?) I think what happened is Normal People had a lot of crossover with romance readers who craved literary prose and deep psychological character portraits. Instead of replicating Rooney herself, i don't know why the publishing industry isn't trying to respond to the appetite she clearly feeds (also see, Emily Henry, Carly Fortune, who are proving a huge market for upmarket romance with a slightly more elevated prose styles). My completely lay opinion is that I think there's an underfed appetite for literary stories where the romance plot takes up a lot space and doesn't end badly lol but maybe I'm just speaking for myself. Whenever I pick up litfic with a love story, a lot of times I feel it flinching away from the romance at some points, whereas Rooney leans into it, doesn't flinch from the fantasy of it, even if her prose itself is restrained. Romance is wildly popular, but it's been largely cultivated in commercial or upmarket spaces. I truly think Rooney tapped into this pre-existing popularity with a literary flare. And I totally agree that litfic should be learning from genre/commercial fiction!
I AGREE WITH EVERYTHING. Why can’t we have sprayed edges? I got Garth Greenwell’s CLEANNESS as a special edition from Waterstones; it had sprayed edges. I want midnight parties, people gathering (in masks, please), and books as beautifully designed as they are written. I want it all.
Yes!
This is everything I've been thinking about, specifically the championing of indie literary fiction, those like me who are going it alone and aware of the barriers to visibility. Readers know when they're being pandered to - yes! And readers of literary fiction want the good stuff, but how and where do they find it? My new novel is out next January, and for this one I've hired a publicity agency to run a campaign, just to see if I can break through and reach people. I'll be reporting on my progress here on Substack.
Last year, I started revisiting classics and high school required reading lists. I suspect it had something to do with wanting to feel “smarter” or more capable of absorbing those works now that I’m older. I tell my CW students, “Readers want to feel smart. If there’s any feeling you want them to feel, let it be that.” Something I notice about “popular” literary fiction is it is often very accessible on the level of the line (Normal People, The Road, Never Let Me Go). I’m not saying that literary fiction of today is missing that key element, but I understand why books like The Song of Achilles sell REALLY well while others might fall flat.
I find this all so helpful. People say to me all the time that "nobody reads anymore," and "nothing gets published" (oh so helpful). But literally every day I read lists in NYT, Washington Post, The Guardian, et al. -- lists of books! mostly new! I belong to a book club, and some of my clubmates belong to two! They are reading books! Yes, I know it's hard. And I think people are trying to buffer/baffle me from the hard fact that it is hard -- i.e., it's not about me, people don't read. Or whatever. And I keep returning to my own home base: write the best thing I can write, "trust God and the creek don't rise" (my Gramma's way of saying that there is a lot of luck involved). Thank you!
Love hearing your thoughts on this! I think publishers need to (and are beginning to) realise that just because a certain book was marketed in a certain way and a certain video around it went viral doesn’t mean you can reproduce that for every book and get the same results. A type of video promoting a fantasy book won’t work the same with a literary fiction book, because the audiences are so different. Literary fiction fans are a big part of booktok, it’s the side I’m on and what fills my fyp, publishers just need to tap into it more.
Sally Rooney isn’t better than countless other writers.
I’m in the camp of Sally Rooney is popular because she has a unique voice and writes about universal themes of love and relationships- I also really enjoyed the Normal People adaptation and it made me go back and read the book multiple times. I’ve only read the excerpt of Intermezzo that was published in The New Yorker but I certainly expect I will like it too. I’m very invested in the future of literary fiction, I have a lifelong love of reading and I enjoy discussing the books I read with my book club and other friends who buddy read certain books with me- one of my college friends and I don’t talk much about our personal lives but have ongoing text commentary about the books we are reading here 14 years after graduating (she also loves Sally Rooney). I also think Sally Rooney does lean into the romance of her stories and as a romance reader, it does make her work more appealing to me. I find romance to be a much maligned genre where some truly great work is being done over the last 10 years especially (see BIPOC authors Kennedy Ryan, Jasmine Guillory, Alisha Rai, Tia Williams). Emily Henry is also an author who got popular on Booktok but whose writing style I truly enjoy- Book Lovers is legitimately one of only 10 books I would call a 5 star read for me in the last 5 years.
I think there’s something about literary fiction that presents itself as being smarter than the average reader, and it can be a bit of a turnoff. Sally Rooney (at least in Normal People) captures the pleasures that readers get from genre fiction without sacrificing the depth of literary fiction.