Artists (now he says he’s an artist?!) hate to be categorized. That being said, it was inevitable that THE FOURTH HOUSE would be pigeonholed into some literary category or another.
The thing is, the simplest description of it is that it is a story. Now, if that sounds too elementary, consider that almost all fiction these days is murder mysteries and the like. Me, I can take them or leave them, but they’re not my passion. I like a good story. Just a story. Give me some characters, some situations, and make me care; make me feel.
This made THE FOURTH HOUSE a hard sell to some, but eventually, it found a home. Books like FOURTH HOUSE are more prone to become movies, quite frankly. I call it a romantic comedy. To call it simply a romance conjures up visions of Harlequin romances with Fabio on the cover. Naw, that’s not it; not it at all.
There are also two newer literary categories: Chick Lit and Gen X. I asked my agent, Mary, if it was either of those. “Well, you’re not a chick and you’re too nice to be Gen X.”
“Yeah, but we’re talking about the book here, not me.”
“They’re one and the same. Any fool can tell that a guy wrote this book and your main characters are too nice to be Gen X. You’re Mainstream Fiction. There was a time when Mainstream Fiction was the biggest publishing category there was, but now, you can hardly find it. It’s a great category, though; people love it.”