A Few Words About the Mystery Genre
The good news is-the mystery genre is flourishing like never before in publishing history. More titles, more new authors, some promising independent publishing houses, lots of public interest.
The bad news is-the publishing world is imploding at an alarming rate as media conglomerates buy up house after house, leaving only the name intact. Publishers are being "acquired" faster than banks and cable services. The distinction between publishers, distributors and retailers gets murkier every day.
The ray of hope is-nature abhors a vacuum and small publishers are popping up like mushrooms after a thunderstorm. Can they reach an audience? Can they make enough profit to survive? Can they turn out a quality product?
Making sense out of all this is akin to understanding Greenspan's theory of economics-when is less more or vice versa? It doesn't seem to help that I deal with the book business as an author, publisher and independent bookseller all at the same time. I do see trends that the general public doesn't. One of my books, Navajo Taboos, is a regional best seller with a small but faithful audience. Distribution is at the mercy of tiny specialty distributors who work on a very slim margin. In the last few years these local wholesalers have been dropping like flies in October; going under or being bought up by bigger and bigger companies.
Newsstand distributors, the guys who strip all those magazines and paperbacks in your local grocery store, are very close to extinction. It is done now by computer from huge regional warehouses owned by a shrinking number of companies.
Similarly, the fact that there are books out there with most of the familiar imprints on their spines doesn't tell the story of a publishing industry with a handful of CEOs who have a modern take on the bottom line. Sure, profit has always been the necessary goal, but there was room for a variety of styles in merchandising. Which also meant some variety in aesthetics-taste if you will.
Though I am a recovering academic who spent nine years in college reading the world's great literature, I have always been a genre fan, preferring mysteries to bestsellers, country to top forty and so on. But these days the distinctions are becoming very subtle, to nonexistent. The other night I half listened to the Academy of Country Music awards show, and it all sounded like Muzac to my ears. What happened to Waylon and Willie? Hank, where are you when we need you?
One of the reasons the mystery genre has enjoyed huge success in recent years (taking a bite out of so-called mainstream fiction) is that it still offers things that readers want-like plot, character development, resolution, a reasonably clear distinction between good and evil. Some old-time personal virtues like honesty, tenacity, empathy, and integrity. Where a man's word and adherence to a personal "code" is not seen as a negative trait, an anachronistic weakness and object of humorous derision.
But, being genre--formulaic in its familiarity--the mystery novel skirts cliché and tired redundancy every time out. It is adherence to the rules, after all, that makes up a big part of the pleasure. The trick is to bend the rules, spread the parameters, twist the clichés, create a concoction at once fresh and familiar.
I envy every newcomer to mystery fiction I encounter. Like all pleasures there is nothing like the first time--the delicious sensation of encountering a master like Chandler may be repeated, but never with the same intensity, excitement and pure joy as the first time. And by now several thousand mystery novels have weakened my eyesight, numbed my sensibility, and taxed my credulity.
There's nothing much to be done about the mega businesses or the corporate mentality that threatens the publishing industry, but we can seek out new talent wherever it lies, support new publishers as much as possible, and keep the independent booksellers alive even if it costs a couple of bucks more. Buying from Barnes and Noble may be false economy in the long run. Your specialty bookseller will get you first editions, signatures, clean undamaged copies and other benefits the big chains can't be bothered with.
This season I am delighted to have found four new writers who break the mold in one way or another, who please and delight, who manage to give full value.
- Ernie |
