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‘Why Is So Much Fiction So Grim?’
A leading American fiction editor answers a question that baffles — and often frustrates — writers and readers
“Why are so many novels and short stories such downers?”
Book critics who speak to community groups, as I do, often hear variations on that question. We sympathize with it, given that our own bookshelves and Kindle apps have their share of titles that aren’t exactly thigh-slappers.
Novels and short stories abound with characters who seem to wallow in the five D’s: death, despair, divorce, drinking, and drugs. Yet life brims with funny or entertaining moments. You might wonder if the fiction editors of books and magazines prefer dismal topics or if the trend relates to all the calamities in the news: the pandemic, the climate crisis, the invasion of Ukraine.
Deborah Treisman, the longtime fiction editor of the New Yorker magazine, gamely tackled the question of why so much fiction seems dreary back in 2008, or before world events took on the darker cast that might explain it. Her response, if brief, hits the mark:
“I fear this goes back to the basic rules of narrative structure: without some form of conflict, you have no plot. Happiness doesn’t provide progression or development. It’s very difficult to…
