Junk Fiction — S.T. Joshi

Bestsellers have been with us for more than a century, ever since the first bestseller list appeared in 1895. But they have received surprisingly little attention from critics. What kind of books become bestsellers? Why do people read them? Do they have literary value or are they merely the literary equivalent of crossword puzzles?

S. T. Joshi, a leading critic of horror, fantasy, and mystery fiction, devotes his attention to these and other issues, showing that bestsellers emerged only with the advent of near-universal literacy and the increased leisure time among the masses. Joshi is also aware that most bestsellers fall into the categories of genre fiction: romance (Danielle Steel, Barbara Taylor Bradford, Nora Roberts); mystery (Mary Higgins Clark, Sue Grafton, Patricia Cornwell); suspense (James Patterson, Nelson DeMille); espionage (Robert Ludlum, Tom Clancy, Clive Cussler); horror (Stephen King, Dean Koontz); and so forth.

Joshi provides detailed examinations of books by these authors, as well as of such recent bestsellers as Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code, and such bygone titles as Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, in a wide-ranging discussion of both the virtues and the failings of popular literature. Joshi's study, written in a witty, accessible style, is must-reading for anyone interested in the literary and cultural phenomenon of the bestseller.