Books have the power to transport us, take us to new worlds, drop us briefly into other lives, show us things that once were, that could be happening now, that might yet be.
Things Can Only Get Better
All fiction is escapism, not just the stories of the far reaches of space or dragon-haunted mountains, but that which is set here and now, in our world, in our streets. Fiction is made-up, by its definition; it didn’t happen, no matter how plausible the writer makes it seem. It is an escape from the real world.
When times are tough, as they are for many people now, when things are uncertain, when the world we live in seems an unsettling and worrisome and even frightening place, then we often turn to books to whisk us away.
And many of us will read what are billed as “feel-good” books. Novels that lift our hearts, bring us joy, make us feel, if even for a brief time, that — and please, excuse the cack-handed, not-so subliminal plug for my latest venture here — things can only get better.
Because everything in the world of books has to have a genre, a sub-division, a label, this sort of feel-good fiction that in truth straddles a whole slew of genres and sub-divisions, was given its own name a year or so ago: Up-Lit. Literature that uplifts.
However. Here comes the “but”, because there has to be a “but”. Fiction cannot just be relentlessly joyful and uplifting. That would be dull, annoying even. Fiction is built on conflict, on obstacles that the characters have to overcome, on journeys that they have to make — both actual and metaphorical — to achieve their goals and grow.
Even the most uplifting novel has to have conflict of some kind at its heart or… well, it’s just not a novel.
I’ve written three novels which you might say fall into the Up-Lit category: Calling Major Tom, The Growing Pains of Jennifer Ebert, and my new one, Things Can Only Get Better. The best thing for me is when people leave a review to say the books made them laugh, because that’s mission accomplished. Who doesn’t like to make people so happy that they laugh out loud?
But (I told you there was a but) just as many people — in fact, usually the same people — say the books made them cry as well. To which I usually say: sorry… not sorry.
Because to truly understand what it is to be happy, we have to know what it means to be sad. We can only really appreciate being up when we know which way is down. Laughter is sweeter when we’ve cried.
Which is why a novel that makes you feel good usually does so not because everything is relentlessly happy and sunny, but because it’s often definitely not. What makes us feel good is the fact that no matter how bad things get, the best Up-Lit, or call it what you will, offers us hope. It gives us the promise that even after the darkest night, dawn will surely break. It shows us the worst of human nature and, ultimately, the best.
All fiction is escapism, but it’s temporary. However, if it’s good fiction, when we come back to the real world, we might just bring with us a tiny spark of how to make things better.
* Things Can Only Get Better by David M Barnett, published by Trapeze Books, is out now.