The [Same Old] New Christian Fiction

Posted by J. Mark Bertrand
on Monday, June 27, 2005
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Deborah Gyapong has been asking some interesting questions. What do the changes in the evangelical publishing industry -- as chronicled in a recent World article titled "Out of the Ghetto" -- mean for Christian writers and readers? Is a bright new era about to dawn, or are we about to witness a frightening implosion? To be honest, I have no clue. I do hope, however, that amid all the prognostication and positioning, more intrepid Christian publishers will take an interest in publishing literary fiction for the general market.

What interests me more than the changes in the industry are the transformations afoot among its critics. (And here, I'm going to pick up my lance and tilt at another windmill. The CBA is too large and too set in its ways to listen to anything I have to say -- and its writers and readers seem to be a tad too defensive to take any criticism without a hurumph.) Mick Silva, for example, has apparently been pressured to drop his prophetic tone and adopt a kinder, gentler view of the Christian Booksellers Association, celebrating the fact that "Christian fiction is much more diverse and interesting than first blush would suggest." I myself have gone from advocating nationwide bonfires to sounding an irenic note, suggesting that writers might -- if they want to, if it's how they feel God leading, if it isn't too offensive to bring up the subject -- want to model themselves on better artists, might want to ask if there is something more to do in art than entertain and evangelize. Or not. Over the past year, I've tempered my tone considerably.

But not because it needed to be tempered. Every criticism I've ever made, every concern I've ever expressed has been justified. The CBA is not a bastion of great books -- or even good ones. More often than not, I pick up a CBA novel only to find it unreadable. All I can think is that the standard for publication is too low. Of course, this isn't true of every CBA title. (Some people reading this will already have their hackles up. "If you concede that not all CBA titles are like this," they wonder, "then how can you paint with such a broad brush?" In other words, if there are exceptions to the rule, how can you still maintain that there's a rule? Hopefully the absurdity of the objection speaks for itself.) There are certainly -- to borrow a phrase from Paste Magazine -- "signs of (aesthetic) life" in the CBA, but if you ask me, the way to nurture them is not to start pretending that they aren't bucking the trend. CBA readers, writers and apiring writers can be a defensive lot, and I'm as reluctant as the next person to cause offense, so there's a natural tendency to curb well-meaning criticism. I do it all the time. I will probably start doing it again once this post is up. But for now, I'm going to make an effort at transparency, even if it results in a certain type of reader writing me off as uninformed, unfeeling or unsaved.

After Mick's transformation, he ran a two-part interview with a CBA suspense novelist named Brandilyn Collins. I found it interesting and frustrating at the same time. Interesting because it is always worthwhile to hear an insider's take on the subject, but frustrating because there is something unsatisfying about the old familiar "there's not a problem, but things are getting better" argument. To do more justice to Ms. Collins' concerns with critics, though, let me reproduce the essence of her three-part rebuttal.

(1) If you're going to complain about the Christian fiction market, you need to know what you're talking about. That means you need to read the novels.... Dear ones, the Christian fiction market is changing so rapidly, you can't even judge it by books published a year or two ago.

To the extent that your critique of CBA fiction is based on the quality of said fiction, I think Ms. Collins is right. It is rather hard to hold a position by hearsay. Of course, there is a reason most critics do not read much CBA fiction, and there is a reason CBA fiction has the reputation it now enjoys -- but set that aside for a moment. If you follow Ms. Collins' advice, you'll have some painful reading ahead. Unfortunately, the industry does not encourage criticism, and so there are few serious book reviews. The ones that exist tend to judge CBA fiction by its own standards, so they aren't particularly helpful for my purposes. Eventually, someone will do for CBA fiction what Mark Twain did for James Fenimore Cooper, but it will be published in Harpers or The Atlantic and Christians will write it off as anti-Christian propaganda.

To me, though, the latter part of Ms. Collins' claim is dumbfounding. You can't judge CBA novels without reading them (or at least a representative sampling), but you also can't judge the CBA based on what it published last year. If that doesn't strain your credulity, you might want to get a new one.

(2) An entire market can't be judged according to your perception of its lack in one or two areas. A market is made up of many different kinds of books--to please many different kinds of readers (who may have far different tastes than you). Those of you who want more literary works--I say fine to that. We already have literary-minded works, and more such authors are coming....

This makes sense to me. I would be the last person to say that the CBA is not serving its market. As far as I can tell, the industry is giving most of its readers what they want. The vast majority of Christians, however, do not read CBA fiction, and if the industry wants to meet their needs, it has some work to do. There are some wonderful voices inside the industry who are pushing things in the right direction, but they are the folks who have been willing to call a spade a spade without laying down hurdles for critics to jump before they can be taken seriously. And, as the pressure on Mick Silva suggests, most insiders don't appreciate these voices at all.

Since the CBA exists as a kind of shadow market, duplicating the world's genres without the sex and violence, I think it probably can be judged on its lack in one or two areas -- and please note that this is not a "perception of lack," as Ms. Collins terms it, but an objective reality. A publishing industry that doesn't have any serious, independent book reviews is a little suspect to me as a reader. An industry that mimics what is most derivative in the culture around it without supporting higher aspirations is a little suspect, too. Yes, there are many different kinds of readers, but do we really want to say, as Christians, that one "kind" our subculture doesn't include is the literary-minded?

(3) Here's the hard reality. We can talk all we want about this issue, but the market is driven by consumers. That means you have to buy the books. If you're in the "want more literary novels" camp, first find those current novelists who write the more literary-minded stuff, then buy them....

Earlier this year, I attended a small press fair where one of the panels went to great lengths to convince us that we had a moral obligation to buy small press books. Many writers -- Annie Dillard is one -- will make the same case about hardback books. Personally, I think this is wishful thinking. How can you argue on the one hand that the consumer is king, and then urge consumers to buy books they don't particularly want in the hope that the publisher will produce books they do want sometime in the future? There isn't much literary fiction in the CBA to speak of. Whenever I raise the topic, I'm assured that it would never sell. "Our readers wouldn't buy that stuff," I'm told, the implication being that they wouldn't understand it. Maybe that's true, but I'd like to think that at some point this will change. It won't, though, as long as the same old walls are thrown up in the face of honest critique and the same old empty promises made about the change that's just around the corner.

To be honest, the only thing I have "against" the status quo in the CBA is that the people who want to defend it seem more interested in stifling criticism than engaging it. People can read what they want, and I realize that the majority of books that are published in any given year -- by the CBA or the general market -- are better suited to landfill duty than serious reading. Still, I'd like to see a few Christian publishers with a determination to publish for the ages in addition to publishing for the bottom line. I'd like to see a few who are willing to part with the industry's gatekeepers and naysayers and set out on a different path -- and I'd like that "path" to be more than a marketing slogan, a banner under which to deliver more of the same. I'm not disappointed that Mick Silva has moderated his tone, or that Brandilyn Collins is defending her industry. I'm just a little sad that evangelical publishing -- like the evangelical church -- can't acknowledge the gifts and callings of its critics without feeling diminished itself.

So I've broken another lance, probably burned another bridge, and the windmill keeps turning long after I've shuffled off. Everything is futile under the sun, and to the making of books there is no end. Amen.