Booksquare

Or something like that. We have long compared literary fiction to pornography — something you know when you see it. Mass market is easy to identify as we spend a lot of time in our grocery store. Sometimes we puzzle over the shelves of books at Vroman’s — which are literary, which are not, and which are just plain bad wrapped up in trade paperback prices? And what happens when literary fiction becomes (gasp!) popular fiction? Or happens to be sold in mass market format? Genre slippage? There is an inherent snobbery in the genre (we do so love snobbery and practice it whenever we can), and The Australian article explores that concept. But it still doesn’t answer the basic question (what is literary fiction?). Texture, one thinks. Ah, texture, we knew it well…

• Inside the L word