Literary fiction is as much a style as a genre.
And yes, it's a genre.
Sorry, nope, don't buy it. Literary fiction ain't a genre.
And I self-identify as a literary fiction writer. Everything I write still has a genre, and it ain't "literary fiction." And lyrical prose and style doesn't necessarily imply literary fiction.
When the prose has a lyrical lilt, when the metaphors are surprisingly novel and profound, when the inner lives of the characters are as important (often moreso) than the plot...it's probably literary fiction.
Maybe.
Maybe, but it ain't what defines literary fiction.
I've blogged on my own thoughts on the definition.
To put it simply, it doesn't have to do with voice or style or "lyrical" prose, whatever that means. It has to do with the level at which the story takes place.
In what I like to call "straight-up" genre fiction, the action (plot) and the central conflict tend to coincide. Most (good) straight-up genre fiction also has internal conflicts that happens below the surface of the plot, but these conflicts either usually aren't the
central conflict of the story, or they coincide with the story (often the case with romance).
In literary fiction, the central conflict and the action or plot can diverge. The external conflict is usually just a vehicle to explore an inner conflict, whereas in straight-up genre fiction, the inner conflict tends to exist to support the external conflict, rather than the other way around.
All good fiction will contain both kinds of conflict, but it's where the focus is that tends to distinguish whether a work is literary fiction or not.
It's also a flexible, vague, overused, and misused term. I think there's more commercial fiction out there than actual literary fiction, but people want the veneer of prestige that the "literary" term grants.
If you're writing literary fiction, I think you know it. It's too stylized and rich not to know. However, I've seen a lot of commercial fiction mislabeled "literary."
Ermmm, I'd disagree with that.
You can have literary fiction that uses simple, direct prose. Fancy prose has nothing to do with whether a novel is literary fiction or not. IMO.
And there's no reason you can't have fiction that's both commercial and literary.