Serious Popular Fiction

The Catholic literary world largely follows the secular world in which literature is divided into "genre" and "literary" with little commerce between them. Genre fiction is highly optimized for addictive consumption, like a literary happy meal. Literary fiction is increasingly abstruse, designed more to flatter the reader than to entertain. Neither form presents much prospect for a transformative Catholic literary revival, which, it if is to be of any consequence, must be both serious and popular. Serious popular fiction used to be the rule. Dickens was the bestselling author of his day, as were many of the authors that we now consider classics of the twentieth century (including, of course, Lewis and Tolkien). If we really want to foster a new Catholic literary revival, we must go beyond putting a Catholic gloss on genre or literary fiction and revive serious popular fiction.