Quote

I don't mean that literary fiction is better than genre fiction, On the contrary; novels can perform two functions and most perform only one.

Literature precedes genre.

Writing is writing, and stories are stories. Perhaps the only true genres are fiction and non-fiction. And even there, who can be sure?

I don't read 'genre' fiction if that means novels with lots of killing and shooting. Even Cormac McCarthy's 'No Country for Old Men' seemed pretty childish in that regard.

I've written six novels and four pieces of nonfiction, so I don't really have a genre these days.

Fiction, even when it's grim and hard, is fun.

It's perceived as an accolade to be published as a 'literary' writer, but, actually, it's pompous and it's fake. Literary fiction is often nothing more than a genre in itself.

Genres do exist because frequent users of any large bookstore can instantly tell what any piece of fiction is supposed to be about by its title, its cover and its location in the shop.

I'm completely indifferent to what genre I read provided that I feel sympathy with how a writer perceives being alive in the world.

In ages past, there was less of a dichotomy between good literature and fun reads. In the twentieth century, I think, it split apart, so that you had serious fiction and genre fiction.