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Exciting new literary terms! (Litrosexual?) |
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Written by asap
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Friday, 01 December 2006 |
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 I recently heard the term "cyberlynching" for the first time. Someone explained to me at a bookseller convention that when a book is maliciously attacked by a customer on amazon.com, it's called a cyberlynch. Typically cyberlynches are written by personal enemies of the author. It sounded dreadful, but it was a  new word to me and it also sounded cool in a way. I mean, the music industry always has great buzzwords and insidery terms. Like crunk, trip-hop, emo, and mash-up. I thought I'd make up a new gaggle of snappy book-related terms. Isn't it time this antiquated business got hip to some new slang? Here we go!
Austentacious: A book written in the style of, or influenced by, Jane Austen. See Emma Tennant, Karen Joy Fowler.
Beer Can Mystery: The distant cousin of the Cozy Mystery (the light mystery genre usually read by grandmother types, such as Rita Mae Brown's Sneaky Pie series), the Beer Can Mystery is typically about men, drinking, sex, and crime. See Joe R. Lansdale, Elmore Leonard.
Cappuccino Caper: The younger, hipper sister of the Cozy Mystery (and probably ex-girlfriend of the Beer Can Mystery). Usually read in an Ikea chair or in a trendy café, sometimes with a scone. See Kate Atkinson, Louise Welsh.
Chabonics: A tragicomical use of language, named after Michael Chabon, award-winning author of The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay.
Coma-prose: A book somehow narrated by someone in a coma. Example: Liz Jensen's The Ninth Life of Louis Drax.
Evelyn Complex: Named after Evelyn Waugh (a man), for an author with a confusing gender name. See Curtis Sittenfeld, Carson McCullers (both women).
Fauxto: When an author's jacket photo looks nothing like them.
The Fifty Dollar Hour: The time it takes for a signed copy of an uncorrected proof to go on eBay.
Frazier Factor: The resulting increase or decrease of author advances after Charles Frazier's $8 million deal for his novel, "Thirteen Moons."
Ghost written: A book narrated by a dead person. See "The Lovely Bones," "Carlito's Way."
The Heterosexual Cloak: A style used by gay authors when writing for mostly straight readers. There is also The Multi-Colored Dream Cloak: A style used by straight authors when writing for mostly gay readers.
Hick Lit: Stories marketed to unsophisticated, usually small town people. See Jeff Foxworthy, NASCAR romances.
Holiday Softy: A non-threatening book that is safe to give to in-laws. See Mitch Albom, Nicholas Sparks, yearly almanacs.
Kite Chaser: A book trying to capitalize on the success of Khaled Hosseini's "The Kite Runner."
Litrosexual: Someone who prefers books to sex.
Magical Falsism: Poorly-written magical realism.
Mutual Backrubs: Blurbs written by authors for each other's books, sometimes known as "The 69 Arrangement."
Pen Mother: An enthusiastic book club organizer.
Piggy-booking: A book written in response to another book. See all the Da Vinci Code hoopla, books about Ann Coulter.
Pynchonarazzi: A small gaggle of photographers constantly in search of elusive author Thomas Pynchon.
Sadtire: A parody with a tragic ending.
Thirty Second Pickup: A sexy book cover picked up by the customer for 30 seconds while they look for more sexiness inside.
WILF: Writer I'd like to fondle.
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Kevin Sampsell is asap's Book Pusher, reporting on the word scene from the inside. Sampsell is an event coordinator at Powell's Books in Portland, Ore. He also runs a micro empire called Future Tense Publishing.
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