Expectations, genre labels, and how to sell—and spoil!—books

With thoughts on Birnam Wood, movie trailers, and the problem of knowing too much before you read or watch

When I started reading Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton last year, I knew next to nothing about the novel except that my book club had selected it. I associated Catton’s name with high-prestige literary fiction (her second book was the Booker award-winning The Luminaries) and I quickly discovered Birnam Wood takes place in New Zealand, which is a plus.

My husband had to explain the Birnam Wood title to me—a reference to Macbeth—using that “Duh, hello,” voice he occasionally uses when I miss a literary reference.

He co-edited a college poetry journal. Now he’s a math teacher. I didn’t take a single English class, aside from journalism, in college. Now I’m a novelist. I win.

You know I’m kidding, honey!

If my leisurely pacing hasn’t estranged you yet (Why do I care about this Substacker lady’s husband?), you’re a good reader for Catton, because she takes her time. We start with a physical description of Korowai Pass, where a landslide has created a closure. Then we meet Mira Bunting, founder of an “activist collective” known as Birnam Wood. Turns out it’s a group of guerilla gardeners.

Well, well. I suppose in some countries gardening counts as exciting—just ask my Canadian neighbors!—but it’s a stretch.

Next, we meet a man named Owin Darvish, who has made a fortune in the pest control business—more excitement—and will be receiving a chivalric title. Then we meet Shelley, a friend or frenemy of Mira’s, who is rethinking her involvement in the guerilla gardening collective.

At this point, I probably would have set the book aside. Not because there was anything wrong with it, but only because there wasn’t anything particularly right. I had no idea where all this was going. I didn’t even understand the Shelley-Mira conflict, or why Shelley wanted “out.”

“Out of the group; out of the suffocating moral censure, the pretended fellow feeling, the constant obligatory thrift; out of financial peril; out of the flat; out of her relationship with Mira, which was not romantic in any physical sense, but which had somehow come to feel both exclusive and proprietary; and above all, out of her role as the sensible, dependable, predictable sidekick, never quite as rebellious as Mira, never quite as free-thinking, never—even when they acted together—quite as brave.”

Yes, that was a long sentence. I’m a fan of writers who are bold enough to write such long sentences.

“But why Hamlet, again?” I ask Brian.

“Macbeth. It’s a reference to Macbeth.”

“Oh boy. I didn’t finish the last book club book. I suppose I really need to finish this one.”

“Yes, you really should.”

Tension with the guerilla collective picks up a hundred pages into my ebook edition—if by “tension” one means there is a meeting at which the woman who makes the soup becomes irritable because no one told her how many people were coming. Don’t you hate that?

Also, we come to understand that guerilla gardening means you plant areas without full permission to use the land. (Trespassing, yes. But a victimless crime, I think we can agree.)

What’s slower than “slow burn”? Snail burn? Can we make that a thing?

I wouldn’t be teasing Catton if she wasn’t hugely famous and I wouldn’t be dissing a novel in this newsletter if I didn’t plan to turn around and tell you I loved it.

Because I did end up loving it—the characters, including a credibly psychopathic American billionaire named Robert Lemoine, and the plot, which in fact does end up extending well beyond horticulture. I appreciated the convincing depiction of Millennial idealists running up against Gen X cynicism and Boomer materialism and the developing themes of prophecy and betrayal. I especially loved the novel’s final quarter.

Can I tell you something, if you promise to forget it in two minutes? Birnam Wood is an eco-thriller. But the thriller part takes several hundred pages to get started. Then it takes off and is a triumphant hoot.

Because I was reading an ebook, I unknowingly protected myself from labels or blurbs. Because it was a book club pick, and I had no choice, I skipped reading reviews. If I’d read that this book was a THRILLER I would have spent hours complaining. “This? A thriller?” By the end, when the novel does in fact lead up to big action sequences, I would have said, “It’s about time.”

Instead, when the pace picked up and [DETAILS REDACTED] happened, I thought, “Whee! What a fun surprise! Oh my gosh! This isn’t just a sleepy horticultural novel after all!”

Birnam Wood may be a snail-burn slow-burn novel, but our young award-winning author, even with her literary accolades, is not anti-plot. In fact, she’s been telling interviewers that she loves plot! Hooray! As she explained in a New York Times podcast, Catton admires how fiction is a way for us to fully experience how human intention leads to action which leads to consequences. Sometimes, very big and dramatic consequences! In this way, plot itself can remind us not to underestimate the effects of individual choices and the fate of our planet. (Do you see where Catton is going with this?)

---

Let me give you another example where you're better off forgetting any labels you stumble across.

The Garden by Clare Beams, a recent novel I adored for its menacing atmosphere, emotional nuance, and psychological intricacy, has *flashes* of horror. The publisher uses the label “Gothic & Horror” (as well as “Historical Fiction” and “Women’s Fiction.”) But if you expect lots of horror you might be disappointed. So what do we call a book like this, aside from “literary” and “really good, just read it”?

Just read it. I mean, look at that cover!

Genre labels are both useful and problematic. Some people are anti-label; some are neutral. But I think those stances ignore the fact that labels operate differently according to when they are applied during the making-and-selling process, as well as whom they are directed toward.

I strongly believe that my current understanding of “mystery” versus “suspense” versus “thriller” helps me as a writer, giving me models, tools, and helpful constraints (which I can choose to ignore or subvert, of course). My own editors roll their eyes at these labels, but to me, as the person creating the story rather than selling it, they are meaningful.

Here’s my oversimplified shorthand, with a much longer version in the footnotes¹. Disagree with me? Please do! I’d love to read your thoughts in the comments.

• Mystery is more intellectual, usually about a crime in the past.

• Suspense is more emotional than intellectual (Hitchcock, who had no interest in mysteries, agrees with me), with peril continuing in the present and near future.

• A thriller is suspense plus lots of action, often from the start. (Having said that, I prefer psychological thrillers and, whether in book or movie form, I get bored by too much physical action until it has been “earned.” But that’s me!)

I fully sympathize with publishers and booksellers who need labels and promises to attract readers.

However, once we start reading, that same label often disrupts the reading experience, because whatever genre or quality is named, we want more of it.

My forthcoming book, The Deepest Lake, has been called a thriller, but is there action or peril from the start? No! (Unless you count the prologue. The reason suspense writers use prologues is because we know the reader wants assurance that peril and action are coming at some point.)

In blurbs, several wonderful authors have referred to my novel as “twisty.” I bet you thought I paid them to say that. I really didn’t!

(By the way…there is a giveaway for Deepest Lake on Goodreads. Or you could just skip the giveaway and pre-order a copy from Bookshop.org!)

When I first saw the “T” word being used in book summaries and advertisements online, I briefly thought, “Oh no! Don’t tell the reader to expect twists! That will ruin the reading experience and I’ll get readers saying either I saw that twist coming or I don’t know what you’re talking about; it wasn’t twisty at all.”

But this is what we do to sell books.

Hollywood leans on labels and inflated expectations even more. Plus they simply give away too much.

In my mind, trailers nearly always go on twice as long as they should. At home, after thirty seconds, I will stop a trailer and shout to my husband, “That’s enough! I’ll watch the movie! Don’t ruin any more of it!” (In the movie theater I just squirm and shake my head.)

For readers like me, ignorance is bliss, and expectations are hazardous. My only consolation is the fact that I have a terrible memory and it gets worse with every passing year. I forget reviews and interviews. I forget trailers. I forget entire books and movies and the jaw-dropping twists they contain.

Maybe not the one in The Sixth Sense—but nearly everything else.

Thank you for letting me vent. Now forget everything I’ve told you: about Birnam Wood, The Garden, and The Deepest Lake.

Still here? Good!

Tell me your favorite recent snail-burn/slow-burn novel or your thoughts on genre labels and expectations management!

1

• The mystery genre is more intellectual; it’s often about whodunit (or howdunit) in the past. The reader enjoys the mental process of finding solutions. The reader may lag behind a mystery-solving character like Poirot or Sherlock Holmes, which is the opposite of dramatic irony. Tension is produced by withholding information.

• The suspense genre is more emotional than intellectual (Hitchcock, who had no interest in mysteries, agrees with me). Even if something criminal happened in the past, the greater peril is in the present or near future. The reader may know more than the characters, which we call dramatic irony. While facts are certainly withheld, tension is additionally produced by providing sufficient information—even more than we might expect in a mystery. (Agree? Disagree?)

• A thriller is suspense plus action. Some readers will accept if the action takes off in the final act. But many readers won’t. Use the “thriller” word haphazardly and you are alienating readers who expect action from the start.

• We can divide thriller into subgenres or at least divide the psychological from the more purely physical/action-oriented type. In the case of a psychological thriller with less overtly physical action, substitute paranoia and intense anxiety about unreliability and whether we can really ever know a person or ourselves or dang near anything (see, epistemology).