Romance Novels Offer Plenty To Love
“We meant no offense,” pleaded the spokeswoman for an East Coast furniture-store chain.
But the damage was done.
Angry e-mail messages scorched telephone wires in the wake of the company’s recent newspaper ads, which teased: “By the time our next sale rolls around, you’ll be reading novels at the beach. (You know, the trashy romance kind.)”
As the chagrined furniture sellers discovered, America’s 7,600 romance writers and their millions of fans are proud of the genre and increasingly unwilling to let pejoratives like “trashy” pass without a fight.
Quips Spokane romance author Joan Overfield, “If someone asks, `When are you going to write a real book?’ I say, `I’ve written 15 real books. How many have you written?”’
Mary Pat Kanaley’s first romance novel debuted just six months ago, but already she’s adept at disarming critics.
“Occasionally someone will say, `Why do you write that trash?’ When I ask them, `What’s the last romance novel you’ve read?’ they bite their tongue.”
So … what was the last romance novel you read?
If you say “Bridges of Madison County,” that doesn’t count. Besides the fact that it’s hard-bound and written by a man - two rarities for romances - “Bridges” violates the most fundamental rule of the genre: It doesn’t have a happy ending.
Romance novels - books in which everything else revolves around a romantic relationship - are everywhere these days, from supermarkets and shopping malls to overflowing public-library racks. Yet many otherwise literate people have yet to peek inside their first romance.
In honor of Valentine’s Day, The Spokesman-Review invited Inland Northwest romance writers to create an original tale of love that blossoms right here in the Lilac City.
The seven-chapter serial “Who Will Be My Valentine?” begins today and continues through Friday, together with profiles of the contributing authors, who range from literary novices to the editor of a national magazine.
Besides entertaining newspaper readers, the writers hope to demonstrate that romances deserve a better reputation than some of those familiar, tacky book jackets would suggest. (“We call them `nursing mother’ covers,” says Overfield.)
Whatever you may presume about the quality of romance novels, there’s no denying their popularity.
Romances account for almost half of all U.S. paperback sales - nearly 200 million units and $1 billion a year. And 140 new titles are published each month.
“I swear they breed at night,” jokes Terry Gregory of Lincoln Height’s 2nd Look Books, where you can peruse 250 shelves of used romances.
The genre has been around for more than a century, notes Jan Cohn, an expert in popular culture at Trinity College in Connecticut and author of a scholarly book on the subject.
“Back in the 1870s and ‘80s, they were much longer, much more complicated novels,” she says, “filled with the language of Victorian hyperimagination. Men’s eyes were always the eyes of leopards and tigers.
“But the story of the weaker heroine putting up with the carryingson of the richer, more attractive, more powerful hero goes all the way back to `Pride and Prejudice’ (1813) and `Jane Eyre’ (1847),” Cohn points out.
Today’s romance readers - mostly women - can choose from a wide range of themes: traditional, Christian, contemporary, historical, multicultural, young adult, romantic suspense, fantasy, paranormal and time-travel.
Judging by a recent list of titles recommended by Romantic Times magazine, another possible category could be “rogues.” Included on that relatively short list were “Highland Rogue,” “Gentle Rogue,” “Beloved Rogue,” “Magnificent Rogue” and “Rogue’s Mistress.”
Regardless of subject matter, though, readers know what to expect. As author Susan Elizabeth Phillips observed at last year’s national romance writers’ conference, in these books “women always, always emerge victorious.”
Cohn agrees.
“What distinguishes the contemporary romance genre is that it’s absolutely formulated,” Cohn says. “A reader can pick up any book and know exactly how it will end - and that’s very comforting.”
Even so, some readers take no chances.
“I’ve watched people read the last few pages before they’d buy a particular romance,” says Susan Carter, manager of Waldenbooks’ River Park Square store, which just expanded its romance section.
Why read books that offer few surprises?
Forty-year-old Debbie Filds, who packages pies for Cyrus O’Leary’s, devours 20 or more romances a month “because they relax me.”
Shirleen Bold, a sales clerk at B. Dalton’s NorthTown store, reads nothing else.
“If I want to see something depressing,” she says, “I turn on television. But if I want to relax, I read a romance.”
According to Cohn’s research, though, there’s more to romances than mere escapism, since readers could accomplish that just as easily through science fiction, westerns or other less popular genre.
“If you read romances carefully,” Cohn says, “they all tell the same story - a nice, sort-of-pretty but not gorgeous, not rich and certainly not powerful young heroine ends up bringing to his knees an older, powerful, gorgeous, rich hero who sinks into submission and says, `Please marry me.’
“The ending is not only happy but incredibly gratifying. I think the message is: `Just hang in there. Don’t misunderstand all this macho stuff.
“This is the route to empowerment. Get the hero, his power and his money.”’
The challenge for romance writers is conjuring fresh variations on this theme, then gaining attention in a marketplace where, as one observer put it, books “have the shelf life of cottage cheese.”
Steven Zacharius of Zebra Books estimates it costs at least $70,000 to bring a novel to print, not including publicity and a first-time author’s meager $4,000 advance.
“Every time we take a chance on a newcomer, we are doing it in the belief that we can make this person a best seller,” says Zacharius, “because it’s virtually impossible to make money on a romance author these days until that author hits it big time.”
In their effort to appeal to a wider audience, publishers are moving away from traditional “clinch” and “bodice-buster” book covers toward more politically correct flowers-andjewels artwork. (But scantily clad heroes and heroines often hide just beneath the surface on the so-called “inside cover,” in sensuous living color.)
Does the romance genre’s rising popularity reflect better prose?
Zacharius says yes.
“In 1995, the only way to survive in the romance field is to produce excellent books, well-edited and beautifully packaged,” he says.
But according to professor Cohn, the quality of today’s romance “ranges from pretty good to absolutely abysmal.”
“A lot of these women (authors) have master’s degrees, and they really know literature, so there’s a lot of subtle literary playing around - echoes of, say, Faulkner, for instance.
“But sometimes the writing is so terrible, you can hardly bear to read it. One of my favorites is a novel that begins, `One day in busy Boise….”’
Says B. Dalton clerk Shirleen Bold: “In years past, the typical romance was just that: a lot of romance and not a lot of story or character development. And there were a lot more violent scenes. Women got raped a lot or had a variety of men.
“But it’s changing. Now there are more singular relationships and less violence.
“Of course, you can still get trashy ones, too,” Bold says. “Everyone has different tastes.”
2nd Look Books’ Gregory and coworkers joke about the genre’s writing style, “things like `her ravenblack hair fell over her milky-white shoulders.’
“Women aren’t reading these to learn anything,” says Gregory. “It’s something to occupy their time. And if they’re lucky, they might get a good story out of it.
“But obviously a lot of people like romances,” she acknowledges, “because we sell them like mad.”