In the realm of Catholic fiction, there is a great divide between popular fiction and that which attempts to be timeless literature. The former is good entertainment that takes place in a Catholic universe and incarnates Catholic themes; the second is at times overly didactic and even clumsily allegorical. The great literature successfully melds the two—embedding the themes within a spellbinding story.

Once when my wife was having her hair cut she happened to mention to the hairdresser that I write books.

“Oh, that’s interesting!” said the stylist, “What kind of books? Adventure? Novels?”

“Religious books.”

“Oh.” replied the hairdresser, somewhat disappointed,”How could there be more than one book about religion?”

Her innocent comment revealed the common perception that if one is a writer, one must be writing fiction for it to count, and if fiction, then it must be best-selling fiction and you must be, or at least want to be, rich and famous.

When I first started writing, I joined a local writer’s group. To join you had to be published, and as I had written some fillers for a syndicated church bulletin I qualified. The group consisted of a prolific author of women’s romance novels, the writer of a successful TV sit-com, a woman who’d written a trilogy of historical novels, a cookbook author, and an eccentric fellow who had scribbled a couple of books of local history. We’d meet for lunch and gab about books and the book business, and I learned a lot.

One of the comments from the old hands was, “If you want to be published, don’t write fiction and really don’t write poetry. Wander around a bookshop” they said, “Observe how many non-fiction books there are compared to fiction. Your chances of being published are far greater if you write non-fiction.”

As I only had an ambition to write religious books it seemed a good bet. However, as the clown longs to play Hamlet, most writers want to write fiction, so after getting a few books and many articles under my belt I attempted a novel. I researched not only the necessary details for my story, but also how to get it published. I gave up after ten chapters, feeling that writing the novel was like climbing Everest, and getting it published was like climbing Everest again. Getting it to succeed in the marketplace was like climbing Everest a third time.

At the writer’s group, the lady who wrote the historical novels told her sad tale. “I worked for ten years on those novels. The historical research alone was a mountain to climb. Then when I had the first accepted I was ecstatic. Success at last! But the publishers did not invest in the sort of marketing campaign that was needed for my books to make a splash. The books got good reviews, but they were on the shelves next to the latest novels by the super-famous novelists, and they had to compete not only with the contemporary, well-known writers, but all the established classics. My books sank quickly in the sea of novels, and all I have to show for my efforts is a reputation as a failed novelist. Agents and publishers won’t return my calls.”

The twenty years since then have seen a revolution in the publishing industry. Authors are no longer dependent on the tastes of commissioning editors (who themselves have never written anything), nor are they so dependent on the whims of the marketplace. The new technologies have empowered a whole new way of self-publishing which is virtually cost-free, and online sales technologies allow an author to sell his own books globally with a good return.

In addition there are new ways of delivering a good story. After twenty-five years of writing books and articles, I am, at last, taking a stab at fiction, but my novel will be read by an actor and delivered as a serialized podcast through my blog-website. Eventually it may be issued in print form, but storytelling is originally a verbal art form and podcasting allows it to be so again with little expense and the potential of a global audience.

Which brings me to ask, what kind of fiction should Catholics be writing? An essayist some time ago berated the likes of me and my friends for churning out essays about our Catholic literary figures and their works and wondered why we didn’t quit idolizing Chesterton, Tolkien, Flannery O’Connor and C.S.Lewis, Waugh, Greene, and Eliot and get on and produce some contemporary Catholic literature ourselves.

In fact there is plenty of Catholic fiction out there. However, in my experience there is a great divide between popular fiction and that which attempts to be timeless literature. The former is good entertainment which takes place in a Catholic universe and incarnates Catholic themes. The second is often somewhat self-conscious: at times overly introspective, them-driven, didactic, and even clumsily allegorical. The great literature successfully melds the two—embedding the themes within a spellbinding story.

In a recent online seminar on the state of Catholic fiction one publisher lamented, “There are plenty of good Catholic fiction writers at the moment, but there is a shortage of good Catholic readers.” She wondered how the audience for Catholic fiction could be prompted to buy and read the new Catholic writers.

This, it seemed to me, was putting the cart before the horse. It was a deflection and denial. Instead of the publisher complaining about the reader’s lack of enthusiasm, the writer should have an eye on his audience at all times and not be ashamed of telling a page turning tale that makes the reader not only finish the book but ask, “When is his next one coming out?” The publisher should be looking for those kind of storytellers.

This is why my own attempt at a novel is what I call “an ecclesiastical John Grisham”. I’m not ashamed of cliff-hanger endings to chapters, a climax, a nail-biting finish, or a bit of sensationalism. It’s a story after all—not a sermon. If they want a sermon let them come to church.

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