When I encounter a friend or relative who sneers at romance — or maybe just doesn’t read it — I don’t ignore the matter. I try to challenge their assumptions, and open their minds. I point out that Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare and the Brontes wrote romances. I point out that the most-mocked literary subgenre is also the one that is most female — that often provokes some interesting discussion.
And if the skeptics I’m talking to are readers, and willing, I give them a few specially-chosen romances to read that I think they’ll like.
What do I choose? Romances that I think are really good, for starters — but also romances that I think will particularly appeal to non-romance readers. Maybe they have some particularly interesting history in them. Or great humor. Or interesting characters.
In the past, particular books I’ve had luck “converting” people with include:
Georgette Heyer — FRIDAY’S CHILD, VENETIA, FARO’S DAUGHTER, THE UNKNOWN AJAX
Joan Smith — SWEET AND TWENTY, IMPRUDENT LADY
Sheila Simonson — LADY ELIZABETH’S COMET
Jennifer Crusie — STRANGE BEDPERSONS, WHAT THE LADY WANTS, WELCOME TO TEMPTATION
So, what conversion books have you tried? Which have worked best?
Or do you just ignore ignorant remarks, and go off and read what you want?
Cara
Cara King — author of MY LADY GAMESTER, winner of the Booksellers’ Best Award for Best Regency of 2005
I don’t think I have ever tried to convince someone to read a romance although I believe you are doing them a favor by showing them all the wonderful stories they have been missing.
Oh geez, I read what I want, when I want, I don’t care what anyone says. I haven’t been around anyone since I started reading romances, so the only looks I’ve gotten where the glazed looks from my science/physics books. LOL
Conversion books. . . well, never had this happen, so I’m not sure what I would suggest. Well, my top favorites that I use if I have to pick out something that is my favorite are – The Rose in Winter by Kathleen Woodiwiss, Tapestry by Karen Ranney are two I use for that. I guess I’d suggest those. But that’s a tough one. 🙂
Lois
Jane Austen, Dickens, Shakespeare and the Brontes wrote romances
Yes, in the sense that they wrote about relationships and love–the stuff of all fiction. So all fiction is romance? I don’t think so.
Janet
How in the world would you define romance, Janet, in a way that doesn’t include any of the above? All of Jane Austen’s novels are clearly romances. They aren’t *only* about the romance, no, but then, few romances are either.
Romance was the through-line of many of Dickens’ novels.
“Jane Eyre” is very clearly a romance.
And the bulk of Shakespeare’s comedies are romances.
If you’re operating by a definition that doesn’t consider any of the above to be romances, I’d be fascinated to hear it!
Cara
Unclear why a conversion effort is needed. More people read romance already than any other kind of fiction. Sharing pleasures is nice — a good friend or a satisfied reader of your fiction might be interested in following the direction of your sensibility. Or they might not.
I’ve had more nastiness directed at me (for being a snob, brainwashed, lacking in common sense and common humanity) for liking Proust than for liking romance.
Austen et al did write love stories–I agreed with that–but I think you have to admit that those writers explore a lot more than the romantic relationship between hero/heroine. They all cover far more in terms of human experience and richness in language than 20th-21st-century romance.
As I said, relationships and love are the lifeblood of fiction, but that doesn’t mean every love story is a romance–unless you mean every love story can be read as a romance, which is something entirely different. I personally think “Wives and Daughters” by Mrs. Gaskell is the ultimate romance, and I can’t think of a romance writer today who can equal her–and that book actually has a pretty narrow focus, the love affair between two young people. Plus the class structure of a small, insular community; an analysis of a hasty and unwise marriage; mother-daughter relationships; father-son relationships. Yes, of course there are romances that include all or some of the above. The difference, is, I think, that Mrs. Gaskell gives all of these topics equal weight with the main love story.
Similarly Jane Eyre (the first Regency-set gothic historical, btw) is more than Jane and Rochester–if you want to see it that way.
Janet
I do think a conversion kit is a good idea.
A couple of cases. One of my friends read my first book and told me it was “much better than a typical romance novel”. Which was funny, because she’d never read one before. I am working on convincing her that other romance authors are “even better”. 🙂
I converted another friend by giving her a copy of Laura Kinsale’s FLOWERS FROM THE STORM. This friend admitted that before that she wouldn’t have been caught dead reading a romance. She thought of herself as too educated for that but now she enjoys Ivory, Kinsale, Putney, Ross, Chase, etc…, along with the wide variety of other books she has always read. She’s a voracious reader.
I know a lot of women like her and see them as a huge untapped market for the more complex and intelligently written romance.
With print runs shrinking all over the place it makes sense to try to woo new readers, no?
Elena 🙂
Elena
OK, thumb-fingered that one. There is really only one of me, though sometimes I wish I could clone myself!
Austen et al did write love stories–I agreed with that–but I think you have to admit that those writers explore a lot more than the romantic relationship between hero/heroine. They all cover far more in terms of human experience and richness in language than 20th-21st-century romance.
Not to pick a fight here, Janet, but haven’t you said before that you haven’t actually read an awful lot of romances? I think you’re selling the modern romance novel short.
I can get rich language, wit, top-drawer humor, depth of human experience, or insight into the human race from Joan Smith and Georgette Heyer and Carla Kelly and Barbara Metzger and Sheila Simonson and Laura Kinsale and Kathleen Korbel and Jennifer Crusie and Kathleen Gilles Seidel and Kate Norway and many others. I’m not claiming every one of these authors does all of these, or does them every time, but they all do some — so I do get all of these from romances.
It seems to me your basic argument is that because the average romance novel is not as good as a book by Jane Austen, that Jane Austen did not write romance — but this doesn’t follow at all, if you think about it logically.
Cara
Unclear why a conversion effort is needed. More people read romance already than any other kind of fiction.
Good point, Pam. But I’m not running around trying to increase romance readership in general — I’m using this to turn friends and family onto some great books. I do the same with other things — in the past, I’ve run around telling them they have to see “Office Space” or watch “Firefly” or “Babylon 5” or read Diana Wynne Jones or Meg Cabot or “Hamlet” or Lois McMaster Bujold.
I’m also fighting for respect from them — respect for what I do, and what I love. The bulk of people out there I don’t worry about — but I do want respect from those close to me. And when it’s merely a matter of them being misled by stereotypes, when they haven’t actually read a romance novel — well, that’s something that’s pretty easy to address.
As for the anti-Proust snobbery — we do seem a culture that does a lot of sneering at each other’s tastes, don’t we?
Cara
Don’t know whether I’m agreeing or disagreeing with Janet re Wives and Daughters (which I read at her recommendation, btw), but to whereas it’s true that there’s the love story and all that other stuff, I’d propose that the book doesn’t just present all the stuff as equally weighted. Rather it ASKS, and doesn’t exactly answer, the question of how it all fits together and what’s in the foreground and what’s in the background. Whereas a romance novel is always clear about the figure/ground relationships. I think that for people who don’t prefer romance, lack of the figure/ground ambiguity or surprise or do-it-yourselfness of working out the relationships is felt as a lack.
I was forcibly converted to reading romance novels, at gunpoint. It was horrible. I was morally cowed.
Actually, none of that is true, except that I was converted to reading romances by a girlfriend (who will remain nameless) who said “I write these, so you’d better read them.” It seemed like a convincing argument. And I’ve read a lot of good books since then!
In spite of the very high readership of romance, it doesn’t get a lot of respect–not from men, but not from a lot of women, either. (In fact, I have occasionally seen vaguely anti-romance statements on this very blog, amazingly enough.)
We do, as a society, do an awful lot of sneering at each other’s tastes. But it’s not all the same. If you read literature (or physics books for that matter), you are likely to come in for a certain amount of “Ah, you’re an intellectual snob and think you’re better than everyone else.” Whereas, if you read romances (or, to a lesser degree, other genre fiction), you get more “That stuff is trash, you must have no taste.”
What I want to know is: Why can’t we all just get along???
Todd-who-thinks-converts-are-often-the-most-passionate-defenders
In spite of the very high readership of romance, it doesn’t get a lot of respect–not from men, but not from a lot of women, either.
I actually find my non-romance-reading girlfriends far more critical of my reading/writing habits than most of my male friends. The guys are just blown away that I wrote a book. Any book. And they all claim they want to read it. My older brother is horribly excited about it, and when I offered an ARC to his wife she said “Give it Jim. Have you seen our DVD collection? Those aren’t my chickflicks and costume dramas.” My brother the ultimate metrosexual.
Women who have never read a romance novel (esp. highly educated ones, in my experience) have a VERY negative (even threatened) attitude about the genre. They’ve bought into the stereotype that it’s nothing but badly written escapism for the downtrodden housewife. I always love pointing out that out of all of us, I’m the one with a graduate degree, so if any of us are going to get on an elitist high horse it should be me. LOL!
I think I use many of the same books you’ve all already named as my “conversion” tools. If they like Austen (and most of them do) I give them Georgette Heyer. I usually start them off with These Old Shades, which nicely leads them into The Devil’s Cub, and then they’re pretty much hooked. And once they’ve devoured Heyer I hook them on Julia Ross, Pam Rosenthal, and Jo Beverley (and then they don’t need me anymore).
My whole plot only fails with those who never enjoyed Austen (like my best friend). *SIGH*
Brava, Kalen!
I have no idea whether grass-roots efforts at conversion will ever make a difference, but it’s worth a try, if only to share a pleasure, as Pam says.
You know, we were discussing “stealth romance” on another blog (Carla Nayland’s) and I DO find that a lot of my girlfriends who, in their own words, “Never read romance.” read a lot of “stealth romance” (Diana Gabaldon, Philippa Gregory, Sandra Gulland). And they’re very defensive when I point out that these are romances (almost as defensive as Philippa Gregory is).
Interesting about “stealth romance,” Kalen. And don’t think romance publishers aren’t hoping to get some of that “stealth romance” market. A very tangled web. I love the fact that the wonderful Sarah Waters (right now a 2-to-one favorite for Britains veddy veddy prestigious Booker Prize) calls her early books lezzy romances (or so I once heard).
As I was saying before, I don’t get a lot of flack from my friends for writing romance — again, because a lot of them are English major types with unfinished manuscripts in their drawers, and admire anybody who’s finished a book. I remember when I told someone at work that I was writing romance and her eyes lit up. “Oh, do you write like Sarah Waters?” Alas, I had to demur, much as I wished I could agree.
Ooh, interesting idea — stealth romance! I didn’t have the term back then, but I remember thinking that “The Bridges of Madison County” was the ultimate example of that. It was written by a man, didn’t have a romantic title, and was originally published as a “literary” novel, so all sorts of folks who would never read a romance, oh heavens, no! felt perfectly comfortable reading that. 🙂
We really do live in a society where, for some reason, violence is hugely more socially acceptable than sex, in many ways. There was just a letter to the editor printed in TV Guide complaining that in the TV show “Bones”, one of the protagonists (played by David Boreanaz, of Angel and Buffy fame) slept with two women within one episode. No complaint, though, about all the liquified bodies, torture, decapitation, etc etc etc — it is an EXTREMELY gross show, and on at 8 pm, but NO, I guess the kids can watch as much gore as possible, as long as no one’s having happy sex.
Okay. Sorry. That rant had very little to do with the topic. 🙂 (By the way, I like the show “Bones” — a lot — I just wish it had less gore, and wasn’t on at 8 pm.)
Cara
I don’t think I have ever tried to “convert” anyone to the Tribe of Romance, but I do have a friend who seldom reads romance but will if I loan her one I insist is good. I’ve had good luck there with Kinsale and Loretta Chase, and those Susan Carroll “Dark Queen” books.
And that segues right into “stealth romance”–I noticed that those books (and a few others popping up on the shelves!) seem to be romances masquerading as historical fiction. I wonder if that works to bring in “romance snobs” and suck them in before they know what is happening?
Cara,
I so agree about our current culture’s highly skewed attitudes about sex vs. violence. Pretty much everyone who makes it to adulthood ends up having sex at some point, and most people do so regularly; while a tiny minority will ever kill someone, or even see someone be killed (thank goodness!). And yet, in TV and movies, exactly the opposite bias holds–it is much more acceptable to see dozens blown away than to see one couple having sex.
Sorry, off my hobbyhorse now. To the stables, Bessie!
Todd-who-doesn’t-like-skewness