New Adventures in Lit Crit Neologism

After reading last week’s dubious reactions, novelist Karen Karbo has her own counter-argument to Seth Godin‘s “trick lit,” a term he invented to describe generic chick lit novels that try to pass themselves off as literary. “How about ‘Brick Lit,’” Karbo suggests, “for a very long book that you were tricked into reading because you thought it was going to live up to its tremendous hype as Grand, Meaningful, Literary, Brilliant, etc., and it’s just an impenetrable piece of hubris from a writer who could use some editing, but who no editor dare touch, because He (it is always a He) is a Great Genius?”

And, unlike Godin, Karbo already has a specific book in mind: National Book Award nominee Denis Johnson‘s Tree of Smoke. (“Sorry,” she adds sheepishly.) I’m sure you can think of others.

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