The Social Novel - Out Of Style?

I haven't read Colum McCann's Let the Great World Spin, a portrait of New York City in the mid-1970s, but I know that some consider it a fine recent example of the social novel. It's on my to-read list but I'm not sure if I'll get around to it anytime soon -- a big backlog of nonfiction is my top priority, at the moment.

Regarding the linked article, I think the author made a lot of good points about contemporary crime fiction. When I read Chuck Hogan's Prince of Thieves (the basis of Ben Affleck's movie, "The Town") a few years ago, I thought to myself "Hey, this book definitely has a "social novel" thing going on."

I'm glad to see this thread, I wish it had been here three weeks ago, because it's a good term for what I would have written for NaNo if I'd been able to write more than a couple thousand words. I'd been thinking of it as political satire; there would seem to be a lot of overlap.

djunamod said:

I'd love to know if there are others who feel they touch on current social issues in their fiction to and how they do it. I'm not so much talking about political action or political issues (that is, changing legislation, putting down government, etc) but more about people and everyday injustices. Are there also any writers that you know of who do this too? Or am I just writing in a dying genre?

Djuna

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Yes, I definitely touch on social issues, but responding to the "how" part of the question has really got me thinking. My characters are each influenced by their own set of circumstances and injustices as well as by the general political and social climate of the times. In my current WIP in particular, I don't even know who my characters would be otherwise. You've certainly given me something to think about, but yes, I definitely do it too.

A slightly more recent examples might be Zadie Smith's White Teeth, which was widely received as a hommage to Dickens. Reading her other stuff too, I have found that Zadie Smith is generally very perceptive about race/gender/class and how these things affect us. Also writes killer essays.


David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest might also count. It's essentially science fiction, but pretty spot on about addiction, depression and the pressure to perform flawlessly in a hypercompetitive capitalist setting.

No reason why genre fiction shouldn't be able to reflect sociological insights. Frankly, I'd expect a certain awareness of the ways in which individuals are shaped by their environment from any writer I'd consider worth reading, no matter the genre. But of course you can be more or less subtle about it, and there are certainly arguments for both approaches.


What makes the social novel, for me, is maybe less the explicteness of its political stance (Dickens was hardly a radical, for instance), but rather its scope - I'd expect a great diversity of perspectives across all kinds of race/class/gender lines. If that results in a doorstopper of a novel, so be it.


It's tricky to pull off, because when your main concern with a story is making some larger point about society in general, it's tempting to get didactic about things and people rarely like to hear sermons outside of church. Dickens and Hugo and Co. could get away with it, because they are also master manipulators when it comes to pulling the good old heartstrings. You usually need to have a huge cast to cover the ground you need to in order to make your point, but you also need to make your readers care about every single one of them. That's quite the challenge.

And maybe a reason why these things might have fallen out of fashion a bit for a while. That kind of fiction that's about avoiding challenging its readers will stay away from highlighting social issues - because the plights of the marginalized are generally unglamorous, the airport-buyer might not have the patience for subplots and side-characters and a realistic treatment of the limitations of individual agency has a way of spoiling the escapist wishfulfilmen. Some of the high-brow literary types abandoned ship as well, because they had decided that they were kinda done with realism anyway.


I definitely think that expanding the circle of empathy via narrative is a worthwhile project and hope this type of novel makes a big comeback.

sohalt said:

A slightly more recent examples might be Zadie Smith's White Teeth,

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This is the first book I thought of. Generally speaking, UK writers seem to have no problem with the social novel. Martin Amis and Rushdie occur to me right away. And I'm not that familiar with contemporary UK novelists, so maybe this list is very long.

Nearly every (if not exactly every) Nobel Prize winner in recent years is a social writer, to some degree. Some are flat-out dissidents in their respective country. Alice Munro isn't a subversive radical, but she is certainly keeping the feminist flame alive, which I strongly suspect led to her prize.

This might be pushing, but can't Michael Chriton's moral messaging count as well?

Amos Gunner said:

This might be pushing, but can't Michael Chriton's moral messaging count as well?

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No. He wrote technothrillers with added political soapboxing. Hardly the same thing. You might as well call John Grisham and Stephen King "social novelists," since they also include lots of moralizing in otherwise straightforward genre fiction.

Social novels are de rigeur in Canadian fiction. Canadian social novels are much more subtle, unless you want to include Atwood there, who is a little more aggressive in her tack. On my plate:

Babiak's novels "Toby: A Man" and "Garneau Block."

You know I looked at that Wiki page before and I think a lot of my writing would probably qualify as socially based. Looking at the responses here it looks like the terminology has changed and it's not as popular in America. I wonder why that is.

It's hard to do well without coming across as heavy-handed. Upton Sinclair's The Jungle for instance, turned practically into a diatribe towards the end, which seemed almost tacked on, from what I remember.

Richard Wright's Native Son was an example of a social novel done well though, imo.

As for popularity, some people want to escape into something, rather than either get a lecture or read something they might find depressing.

Amadan said:

No. He wrote technothrillers with added political soapboxing. Hardly the same thing. You might as well call John Grisham and Stephen King "social novelists," since they also include lots of moralizing in otherwise straightforward genre fiction.

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I'd certainly call John Grisham a "social novelist" with some of his books (I don't mean books like The Firm and The Broker, obviously enough). A Time To Kill seems a fairly classic "social novel" to me, and even The Pelican Brief and The Runaway Jury could arguably be discussed that way, as well as a few of his later works whose titles escape me now, written during his Graham-Greene-imitation phase?

It certainly wouldn't have occurred to me that Michael Crichton could be considered a "social novelist".

No, the social novel is not out of style. But modern ones may be a little more subtle in how they handle social issues, authors having seen so many cautionary bad examples.

One good example is Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which doesn’t feel to me to be dated or heavy handed at all. Her criticisms are no less sharp for being subtly presented.

This is basically the kind of novels I write. I think that there is a much more accepting atmosphere for this kind of novel in Europe. What was the first novel JK Rowling wrote after the Harry Potters? A social novel.

I'm interested in people who come in conflict with systems, with culture, with processes. My first novel was about what happens to a kid that gets caught in the vicious UK tabloid media cycle. You know, you walk past The Sun or the Daily Mail and you see some young lad on the front page with the epithet 'yob' or 'skiver' on the front. My current novel is a fantasy, but only because I think it's best written as fantasy, but I think it is also about what happen a young person in a war. Particularly if there is a narrative to latch onto that excuse brutal behaviour.

So, yeah, I write social novels. Shoot me. I'm not sure they are overtly political though because it's always bad to try to preach in prose. But of course, what happens to people is a result of politics, and the conclusions can be construed as political. Straight up moralizing is bad practise. But letting readers draw conclusions based on the events of a story is another matter entirely.

I don't know if this was always the case, but there doesn't seem to be a large audience interested in the social novel. When one does come along and becomes the exception to that rule, however, the books seem to do awfully well. People have already mentioned White Teeth and Infinite Jest, and Franzen got himself on the cover of Time after he published The Corrections (or it could have been Freedom, I don't remember).

I don't know if this is because the quality of the social novel has waned in recent times or if it's simply because people aren't willing to be engaged by more serious, demanding fiction anymore. I do know that publishers are killing themselves by giving large advances to novelists whom they think will do well, because when you give a writer a six-figure advance, you foreclose your ability to give other writers a shot.

For me, the issue isn't about whether or not the social novel is still in style. If it wasn't guys like Steinbeck wouldn't be considered classics.

For me, the issue is whether or not I could write one. I'm 25, very young by most standards. What do I have to say about life that hasn't already been said before by more lauded authors?

I think the trick is to hit a social issue that you have something powerful to "say" about. Many attempted social novels veer into preaching or cliches. The Luminaries is arguably a recent success story in this area.

veinglory said:

I think the trick is to hit a social issue that you have something powerful to "say" about. Many attempted social novels veer into preaching or cliches. The Luminaries is arguably a recent success story in this area.

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I agree. In my mind, there are two things going on with social novels.

1) Timeless themes that are retold.

2) A story specific to a particular generation.

Right now, I can only think of stories that could be put in the first category. In such cases, the execution is more important than the underlying truth.

Genres don't die, they are just reinvented, reborn, adapted for new generations and new circumstances.

We believe that there is scope for contemporary social novels to do well in the current UK market, for instance, certainly for the next 18-24 months and possibly beyond.

I think some of what is classified as "chick lit" actually fits into the "social novel" category - it often contains subtle philosophical commentary on modern culture, class, society, marriage, etc.

I think that the social novel is almost certainly still being written, but for the last few decades it's had a hard time getting published. This is perhaps not so surprising when you think how conservative the political landscape has become, especially in the US and the UK. Maybe this is changing now again, I hope so!
For the past few decades, many books focused on the small world of the family, interior exploration, and 'fluffy' pieces. Social novels were supposed not to sell so well. Not appealing to the masses. I'm not so sure.
Let's see some change!

The books I am working on for my current pen name are all social novels. They are just told in a way that is showing the problems of today. The stuff I see as appalling. Too bad for me if its "dead". Its what I want to write about. What fulfills my writing persona and makes writing worthy to me. I'm telling a story, yes, but I'm telling about something that happens now, everywhere around the world. And IMHO is not right.

Though none of mine so far are about womens equality or politics. They may have side issues that slide into those areas though.

Besides, the one great rule of fashion that I am going to use for books - everything out of style eventually comes back in trend.

I've not heard of the term 'social novel,' but if I had to put my current work within a genre, that would do. Four grown abused misfits in the early 1960s who find each other and make a family of their very own, societal expectations be damned.

I liked this post. Found a couple of new - to-me authors I'll have to try. Thanks.

I have a few stories that fit this description, although most of them will probably be either novelettes or novellas instead of full-blown novels.

My social "novels" tend to focus on the entertainment industry, as well as Internet culture and teen culture. I also touch upon things such as misandry and double standards against men. I personally don't care if it doesn't age well, since maybe people in later generations might care more for the plot than any social messages.

I would love to write something "important." I think I had a great start with a novel that was much too long for the point it needed to make, and I didn't know nearly enough about writing at the time to pull it off. I still might not know enough, but I'm getting itchy to resurrect that project and give it another go.

"Social" writers have always been passionate, so that's not the problem, and every cause has a loyal group of fellow enthusiasts/activists, so that's not the problem either. The problem is the public is notoriously fickle and getting a large number of people to care about an issue is tough. You have to hit them just right with just the right message delivered in just the right way at just the right time. An issue gets ignored one year but then is all the rage the next. Even those who say "I've been saying that for years and here's the book to prove it" get ignored in favor of the hero of the week. Welcome to celebrity; it's not likely to be any different any time soon. Anyone who could predict these trends would be able to change the world and make a ton of money on book sales in the process. Therefore, write for the passion and see who responds.