The latest book picked for Oprah's Book Club is Cormac McCarthy's The Road. I'm pretty sure this is the first science fiction book, and first out and out genre novel, named to the prestigous club. I'm really curious what all of those Oprah readers will think of McCarthy's dark post-apocalyptic story. This is pretty cool.
However, as it is almost assured to reach the best-seller lists and stay there for a while, will the Oprah sticker turn away some people the book would otherwise appeal to?
3 comments:
I bet the soccer moms who watch Oprah will wonder what the hell she was smoking when they get to the roasted-baby scene.
Sci-fi is a logical leap for booklists like Oprah. Sci-fi has always been steeped with societal issues. I'll start considering the Oprah love fest viable when horror, westerns and high fantasy start getting recommended. It's a good start but McCathy may just scare away some of the less open minded readers in Oprah's club.
Besides... it's all political... The Road was nominated for an NBCC Award. Don't think for a second the novel isn't being billed as literary first Sci-fi second. It spells a brilliant success for the novel. Just ask Atwood about milking both the literary and genre markets.
Open-minded Oprah readers? I thought the were all mindless zombies who read whatever the great Thulsa Doom commanded they read.
And of course it's being touted as literary first, just like Blood Meridian, No Country for Old Men and All the Pretty Horses; because those weren't genre novels at all. It's like when Jess Walter's The Zero was nominated for the National Book Award, that thing got taken out of mystery and shelved on the literary section pretty fast.
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