Religion Update
By Lynn Garrett -- Publishers Weekly, 6/17/2002
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What's Inside
As the commercial trajectory of these books has climbed, so, too, have the quality and ambitions of many of them. Yet problems and challenges remain, and in this Religion Update we examine both the successes and the work yet to be done. We also zero in on the suspense genre, arguably the category's most active at the moment. Retailers tell us what flies off the shelves and what languishes, as well as how they sell it. We look at literary fiction with religious themes; a noticeable number of such books have recently drawn critical acclaim and won major book awards. Finally, profiles of some of the category's rising stars reveal their imaginations and hopes. Today's demand for religious fiction confirms once again the ancient
power of story to engage, inspire and carry readers
away. |
Not too many years ago,
evangelical Christian fiction was greeted with suspicion by the owners and
patrons of Christian bookstores, and ignored by critics and general trade
publishers. Clearly, all that has changed. Today, inspirational fiction is
one of the hottest categories in publishing. Evangelical houses have
ramped up their fiction programs, and big trade publishers have paid big
bucks to get into the act. Though no one has duplicated the astonishing
sales of the Left Behind series or the solid performances of mainstays
like Janette Oke, Jan Karon and the Thoenes, other top authors of
religious fiction regularly make publishers and booksellers--not to
mention readers--very happy.Fiction's
Growing Pains Faith
Fiction Gains Ground For the
Thrill Of It All Booksellers Pick the
Winners Books in
Brief In
Profile All Faiths
Calendar
Every parent watches it happen. Seemingly
overnight, a child shoots up and takes on the appearance of an adult, causing
parents to wonder what happened to their baby. The teenager looks like a grownup
and sometimes even seems to think like a grownup, demonstrating startling,
though fleeting, moments of maturity and clarity. All of this happens amid the
Sturm und Drang of adolescence, as teens find their identity while appeasing
their peers and struggling to keep hormones in check.
As commercial Christian fiction continues
to settle in to the bestseller lists, another kind of novel that deals with
matters of faith has quietly made some inroads of its own. Spearheaded most
recently by the phenomenal word-of-mouth success of Anita Diamant's The Red
Tent, literary fiction with religious themes is attracting some serious
attention.
It's no mystery that one of the hottest genres
today in fiction for the evangelical Christian market is suspense. The
proliferating genre includes legal, medical, futuristic and military thrillers,
murder mysteries and supernatural novels, many with a generous dollop of
romance. The stories themselves are squeaky-clean, with no sex, graphic violence
or profanity beyond the occasional "darn it".
For buyers of Christian fiction, the selection has been
dominated by mediocre books, far outnumbering the good ones--at least until now.
A handful of authors are credited with making the genre, as well as the market,
grow up in recent years, earning Christian fiction a respectable place on
bookstore shelves. While few in the industry would go so far as to label any
Christian novel "literary," the genre certainly can be likened to a
teenager--long past its infancy and ready to spring into adulthood.
What's new in Christian fiction
Top novelists in the category talk about their
worth
Selected observances for the Summer Season
