The imitation game
Genres and sub-genres of fiction are not merely the invention of needy reviewers or academics. They are the way that books are marketed, and the way that many are written. Recognition is just what the novelists trade on: recognising the travails of postfeminist masculinity, or the disappointments of parenthood, or the anxiety of thirtysomething childlessness. (Never have so many characters been in their 30s.) More specifically, you are asked to recognise the clothes labels, or the favourite cookbooks, or the characteristics of London postal codes (for the once-popular "regional novel" seems a thing of the past, and London is now the natural setting for aspirational fiction). The Hornby method has been catching: the names of roads, shops and tube stations frequently stand in for any actual sense of place.
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