Lit Fic (short for "Literary Fiction") is a nebulous, broad term which emerged during the 1960s. Though it is usually contrasted with Genre Fiction ("Speculative Fiction", Mystery Fiction, Romance Novel, and so on), there's more to it than "any non-genre fiction"; in some respects, it is a genre unto itself, characterized by an aspiration to literary merit and a greater focus on style, theme and psychological depth—as opposed to the focus on plot and narrative typical of genre fiction.
From this you might infer that this is typically not the kind of work that provides one's daily fix of vampire-hunting, magically-transforming, banana-bending, mecha-piloting, super-powered, time-travelling teenagers beating the odds. A touch of Magical Realism might be allowed, but never to the point where it becomes the focus of the story. Rather, a piece of Lit Fic is much likelier to be about everyday people doing everyday things, dealing with everyday problems and eventually coming to realizations or personal transformations. A family struggles with cancer. A man struggles with death. A couple struggles with alcoholism. A child struggles to become an adult. Literary fiction is therefore sometimes criticized as "100,000 words in which nothing happens". Contrariwise, literary fiction writers dismiss genre works as childish wish fulfillment. Interestingly, this gives it much overlap with what is called Slice of Life fiction, which is similarly about people going on with their daily lives (although Slice of Life is in a very general sense perceived to be more lighthearted).
There is very little escapism or Wish-Fulfillment in Lit Fic. For some readers, this induces an instinctive aversion to the genre; they deem it pretentious and boring, an over-application of "write what you know" that is mainly capable of generating tales of middle-aged English professors contemplating adultery. For other readers, the contrast between the realism and the conventions of genre fiction is refreshing and makes stories more relatable. Lit Fic, more than any other genre, invests itself in real-life situations and real-life people. This is, generally, a good investment; in the end, even in the wackiest and most speculative adventures, the touch of real life—characters and their believable faults and struggles—is what ties everything together, carries the Willing Suspension of Disbelief and keeps the Eight Deadly Words at bay.
Ostensibly for this reason, and because lit fic is most likely to appeal to sensibilities of the the gatekeepers of "good" fiction, Lit fic has a reputation as the "mainstream" of fiction. It does not have the greatest market share and is overall not the most popular, but it aims at the center of mass of what storytelling is about, and as a result if a work of fiction is called a "classic", most of the time it’s a piece of Lit Fic. It's worth noting that the genre really only began to appear towards the end of the 19th century, when the corresponding genre fictions began to crystallize (one could argue that most works of fiction before the emergence of genre fic are essentially lit fic, but the term is generally used to refer to contemporary works).
Much like other things in life, the division between literary fiction and genre fiction is not a total binary dichotomy. The typical struggles of people just trying to find their place in the world comprise one aspect of storytelling; the speculation on what the world would be like if only it were slightly more fantastic is another aspect of storytelling. Various works will emphasize these two aspects to varying degrees, and as a result, sometimes the line between the two genres becomes blurred. To top it off, it is worth keeping in mind that works from both genres will often defy expectation and act wildly out of the stereotype expected of them. Some works dealing with "ordinary situations and ordinary people" will make you cry with laughter. Some works dealing with spaceship politics on the planet Xyrrzquilon VI will introduce situations that hit close to home and will make you pause and really think about your own life and where it is going.
Some established genres are remarkably prone to getting Out of the Ghetto. This is especially true of the heavier kind of Spy Literature, since its subject matter naturally raises questions about morality, politics, power, loyalty, and the nuances of man's psychenote . Science Fiction also can become "respectable" if a work explores its era's social and philosophical problemsnote . Interestingly, "literary" sci-fi novels often aren't accepted into the literary canon until long after their publication ... at which point they stop being considered sci-finote . Some commentators have proposed a category that they call "literary crime," since Crime Fiction, by looking under a moist log in the human psyche, lends itself to exploration of the human condition.
Getting out of the ghetto is also easier in genres that are strongly associated with an eminent author whom critics respect, thanks to that author's halo effect. Look no further than Sea Stories, which enjoy respectability-by-association with Moby-Dick. Detective Fiction also has a certain respectability, thanks to the legacies of Arthur Conan Doyle, Agatha Christie, and Edgar Allan Poe.
In general, Speculative Fiction novels that get Out of the Ghetto tend to be darker than other works in their genres. If it's Spy Literature, expect moments of action to be few and far between, and expect the ending to be bittersweet at best. If it's science fiction, the setting will probably be dystopian. It also helps if a work is old: after all, the concept of lit-fic didn't exist until the 1960s, so many older respected "speculative" authors got grandfathered into the literary canonnote . Publishers often use the term "upmarket fiction" to describe works that combine aspects of literary fiction and genre fiction.
Archetypal authors include:
- James Baldwin
- John Barth
- Roberto Bolaño
- Jorge Luis Borges
- William S. Burroughs
- Miguel de Cervantes
- Michael Chabon
- Joseph Conrad
- Robert Coover
- Don DeLillo
- Charles Dickens
- Philip K. Dick
- Jennifer Egan
- Dave Eggers
- William Faulkner
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
- E.M. Forster
- Jonathan Franzen
- William Gaddis
- Allen Ginsberg
- Graham Greene
- Thomas Hardy
- Ernest Hemingway
- John Irving
- Kazuo Ishiguro
- Henry James
- F Sionil Jose
- James Joyce
- Jack Kerouac
- DH Lawrence
- David Lodge
- Norman Mailer
- Cormac McCarthy
- Ian Mc Ewan
- Herman Melville
- David Mitchell (Author)
- Toni Morrison
- Vladimir Nabokov
- Joyce Carol Oates
- Flannery O’Connor
- Thomas Pynchon
- Ryu Murakami
- John Steinbeck
- Laurence Sterne
- Jonathan Swift
- John Updike
- David Foster Wallace
- Thomas Wolfe
- Tom Wolfe
- Virginia Woolf
Examples of Lit Fic with pages on this wiki include:
- 2666
- About a Boy
- Absalom, Absalom!
- After Dark
- after the quake
- Against the Day
- The Alexandria Quartet
- All Quiet on the Western Front
- All the King's Men
- The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
- American Pastoral
- American Psycho
- An American Tragedy
- And the Mountains Echoed
- Animal Farm
- Anna Karenina
- As I Lay Dying
- Atonement
- At Swim-Two-Birds
- The Autumn of the Patriarch
- A Visit from the Goon Squad
- The Awakening
- Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup
- The Bad Girl
- Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress
- Barriers of a Broken Soul
- The Basic Eight
- Bastard out of Carolina
- Baudolino
- The Beach
- Beau Geste
- The Beautiful and Damned
- The Bell Jar
- Beloved
- Bewilderment
- The Big Nowhere
- The Black Dahlia
- Bleeding Edge
- Bless the Beasts & Children
- Blood Meridian
- The Bluest Eye
- the bone people
- The Bonfire of the Vanities
- The Book of Joan
- The Book of Negroes (aka Someone Knows My Name)
- The Book Thief
- The Border Trilogy
- The Boy Who Couldn't Sleep and Never Had To
- Brave New World
- Breakfast of Champions
- Brideshead Revisited
- The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- A Brighter Sun
- Brighton Rock
- The Broom of the System
- The Brothers Karamazov
- The Brunist Day Of Wrath
- Buddenbrooks
- The Butterfly Revolution
- Burnt Shadows
- Cannery Row
- Capital
- Carrie Soto Is Back
- The Casual Vacancy
- Catch-22
- The Catcher in the Rye
- Cat's Cradle
- Changing Places
- Children of Dust
- The Choir
- Choke
- The Cider House Rules
- Colas Breugnon
- Cold Mountain
- The Collector
- Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage
- The Color Purple
- The Cone Gatherers
- A Confederacy of Dunces
- The Confidence-Man
- The Confusions of Young Törless
- The Cornelius Chronicles
- The Corrections
- Cosmicomics
- Crash
- Crime and Punishment
- The Crimson Petal and the White
- Cry, the Beloved Country
- The Crying of Lot 49
- Daddy-Long-Legs
- Dance Dance Dance
- A Dance to the Music of Time
- Dandelion Wine
- Darkness at Noon
- A Death in the Family
- Death of a Pop-Idol
- The Devil to Pay in the Backlands
- Dhalgren
- Distant Star
- Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood
- Doctor Faustus
- Doctor Zhivago
- Don Quixote
- The Dwarf
- Dubliners
- The Eagle of the Ninth
- East of Eden
- Effi Briest
- The Elegance of the Hedgehog
- Ella Minnow Pea
- Elmer Gantry
- The Emigrants
- The Enchantress of Florence
- The End of the Affair
- The English Patient
- Ethan Frome
- Everything Flows
- Everything I Never Told You
- Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close
- A Farewell to Arms
- The Fault in Our Stars
- Fellow Travelers
- Fifth Business
- The Fifty Year Sword
- Fight Club
- Finnegans Wake
- The First Circle
- The Five People You Meet in Heaven
- For Whom the Bell Tolls
- Foucault's Pendulum
- Franny and Zooey
- Freedom
- The French Lieutenant's Woman
- From The Fatherland With Love
- Funny Boy
- Gadsby
- Ghostwritten
- The Giddy Death of the Gays and the Strange Demise of Straights
- The Gift of the Magi
- Giovanni's Room
- Glamorama
- The Go-Between
- The God of Small Things
- The Goldfinch
- Goodbye, Mr. Chips
- The Good Earth
- The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ
- Go Tell It on the Mountain
- The Grapes of Wrath
- Gravity's Rainbow
- The Great Gatsby
- Gulliver's Travels
- Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World
- The Harp in the South
- A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius
- Hear the Wind Sing
- Heart of Darkness
- Henderson the Rain King
- High Fidelity
- Hobson's Island
- Home
- Hopscotch
- The Hotel New Hampshire
- The Hours
- House of Leaves
- House of Sand and Fog
- The House of the Spirits
- House Rules
- How Green Was My Valley
- Howards End
- Humboldt's Gift
- I Capture the Castle
- If on a winter’s night a traveler
- I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
- Illuminatus!
- Ilustrado
- In Dubious Battle
- Infinite Jest
- Inherent Vice
- Interpreter of Maladies
- In the Unlikely Event
- Invisible Man
- Invisible Monsters
- I Stop Somewhere
- It Can't Happen Here
- JR
- Jackdaws
- Johnny Got His Gun
- The Joy Luck Club
- Kafka on the Shore
- The Kite Runner
- Lady Chatterley's Lover
- Last Exit to Brooklyn
- The Last Hurrah
- Less Than Zero
- Libra
- Life of Pi
- Light in August
- Little Fires Everywhere
- Lolita
- Look Homeward, Angel
- Looking for Alaska
- Lord of the Flies
- Lost Horizon
- The Lovely Bones
- The Love of the Last Tycoon
- Madame Bovary
- The Makioka Sisters
- Malibu Rising
- The Man Without Qualities
- Mason & Dixon
- Mass
- Maurice
- Max Havelaar
- McTeague
- The Medusa Frequency
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- The Mermaid of Black Conch
- The Metamorphosis
- Me, Who Dove into the Heart of the World
- Middlesex
- Midnight's Children
- The Miracle Letters of T. Rimberg
- "Miriam"
- Moby-Dick
- Moment in Peking
- Mommie Dearest
- Mostly Dead Things
- Motherless Brooklyn
- Mother Night
- Mrs. Dalloway
- My Brother, My Executioner
- My Dark Vanessa
- My Name Is Red
- The Mysteries of Pittsburgh
- The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana
- My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- The Naked and the Dead
- Naked Lunch
- The Name of the Rose
- "The Necklace"
- Never Let Me Go
- The New York Trilogy
- The Night Circus
- Nineteen Eighty-Four
- No Country for Old Men
- Norwegian Wood
- Nostromo
- Numero Zero
- Of Mice and Men
- The Old Man and the Sea
- One Day
- One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich
- One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest
- On Heroes and Tombs
- On the Road
- One Hundred Years of Solitude
- Only Revolutions
- The Orchard Keeper
- Ordinary People
- The Origin of the Brunists
- Orlando: A Biography
- The Orphan Master's Son
- Out of My Mind
- Outer Dark
- La Oveja de Nathán
- The Painter from Shanghai
- Pale Fire
- The Pale King
- Papillon
- A Passage to India
- Pavilion of Women
- The Pearl
- Pedro Páramo
- Peony in Love
- People of the Whale
- Perfume
- The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- The Picture of Dorian Gray
- Pinball, 1973
- The Plague
- Pnin
- The Poisonwood Bible
- Po-on (Dusk)
- Portnoy's Complaint
- A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
- The Power and the Glory
- The Prague Cemetery
- A Prayer for Owen Meany
- The Pretenders
- The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie
- The Public Burning
- Pure
- The Quiet American
- Rabbit at Rest
- Rabbit, Run
- The Rami Johnson Trilogy
- The Recognitions
- The Red Night Trilogy
- The Red Pony
- The Reluctant Fundamentalist
- The Remains of the Day
- Requiem for a Dream
- The Return of the Native
- Revolutionary Road
- Riddley Walker
- The Road
- The Rules of Attraction
- The Satanic Verses
- The Savage Detectives
- Schroder
- The Secret History
- Seize the Day
- A Separate Peace
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo
- Sexing the Cherry
- Shine Shine Shine
- Sing You Home
- A Single Man
- Skagboys
- Slaughterhouse-Five
- Small Island
- Small World
- Snow (2004)
- Snow Falling on Cedars
- The Son's Veto
- The Sound and the Fury
- South of the Border, West of the Sun
- Sprat Morrison
- Sputnik Sweetheart
- Stephen Hero
- Strong Motion
- The Sun Also Rises
- Sun Bleached Winter
- Suttree
- The Sweet Hereafter
- Sword of Honour
- A Symphony of Eternity
- A Tale Of A Tub
- Tender Is the Night
- Their Eyes Were Watching God
- Then We Came to the End
- The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea
- These Words Are True and Faithful
- Things Fall Apart
- The Third Policeman
- The Thirteenth Tale
- This Side of Paradise
- The Thousand Autumns of Jacob de Zoet
- A Thousand Splendid Suns
- The Tiger's Wife
- The Time of the Hero
- The Tin Drum
- To Kill a Mockingbird
- Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow
- A Town Like Alice
- Tree
- Tropic of Cancer
- The Tunnel
- Typee
- Ulysses
- Under the Volcano
- Underworld
- V.
- Verge: Stories
- Vineland
- The Virgin Suicides
- War and Peace
- The Wasp Factory
- We
- Weathercock
- We Have Always Lived in the Castle
- Whale Rider
- What Dreams May Come
- White Fang
- The White Men
- White Noise
- White Oleander
- White Teeth
- Boy's Life
- The White Tiger
- A Wild Sheep Chase
- The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle
- Wise Blood
- A Witch's Burden
- The Wooing of Beppo Tate
- The World According to Garp
- Yellowface