"supernatural romance" vs "tragic life stories"

There needs to be a "supernatural bromance" section...

"My best mate is a zombie, every time we go clubbing he gets dead drunk"

I voted for "tragic life stories" as the worst, especially the ones that turn out to be completely made up. But vampire fiction brings the lulz...
http://www.whsmith.co.uk/Images/Products%5C444%5C901%5C9781444901504_l_f.jpg
LJ Smith? Hang on...
Anyway, the description alone is enough to make me never want to pick up a book with two handsome young men on the cover:

'Elena Gilbert is alive - again. When Elena sacrificed herself to save the two vampire brothers who love her she was consigned to a fate beyond death.'

Er, which would be being alive again? What is this, Buddhist vampire fiction? Or is this one of those novels where the twist right at the end is that she's really standing in a branch of WHS reading a book about vampires?

'Until a powerful supernatural force pulled her back. Now Elena is not just human. She has powers.'

Oooooh-kaaaaaaay...

'What's more, her blood pulses with a unique force that makes her irresistible to any vampire.'

That would be 'having blood', right? Or maybe it's emo wannabe goth teenager syndrome?

'Both brothers still want Elena to be theirs, but something bigger and more powerful than all of them may want her more...'

Well I'm sure the plot is a completely unpredictable roller coaster ride that skillfully avoids all the tired old cliches of the genre...

'Now a major ITV2 series'

Yep, totally sure...

Incidentally, those two guys are advertising the new "Vampire at Topman" collection.

Supernatural Romance is just good old fashioned escapism, ain't nothing wrong with that. I can think of many reasons to hate on romance novels (blah blah patriarchal reinforcing heteronormative bullshit) but still can't entirely condem the genre given that so much of hating on the genre is hating on the (perceived) consumers of said genre.

Tragic live stories is just misery pr0n and I'm not having it.

I'm not into supernatural romances but they are escapist fantasy and I can see why some people can read and enjoy them. The books about rape, abuse etc. give me the wiggins though -- most of the audience for these "true life" books has a prurient interest in them.

xp my post is almost identical to Kate's!

I get the feeling that most readers of "tragic life stories" also read the Daily Mail/Express.

Tragic life stories is a whole section? You know, I wonder why they didn't think of this sooner - when I worked at a bigbox bookstore I had countless people (usually older women for some reason) asking me where the nonfiction section was, and they'd inevitably get confused and frustrated when I told them that every section BESIDES FICTION was a nonfiction section. Eventually one of them said "I just want to read some true stories!" My guess is that "Tragic Life Stories" was exactly what she was seeking.

I don't think I could bring myself to read either, but I'll vote for supernatural romance because some of those YA novels from the 80s were pretty good. Margaret Mahy is awesome and she was doing it long before stupid Stephenie Meyer.

I post to another message board about (unintentionally) bad books and there are a loooooot of bad supernatural romances.

Tbh I would be surprised if there were many good ones.

That one about the virgin and the manger seems to have gone over well.

I can totally dig the escapist fantasy appeal with the "supernatural romance" thing, and having read any amout of bad SF and S&S when I were but a lad, it woyuld be totally hypocritical to rag on it too much - what gets me about it though is 1/there doesn't seem to have been much of this stuff around till quite recently, now theres piles of it and 2/reading the coverlines and the blurb on the back, it does seem to be a bit in love with some bizarre ideal of DEATH, which I really don't find very appealing, and think is kind of bad on some higher level.

I googled "tragic life stories", and found this blog:

http://www.qwghlm.co.uk/2007/10/29/grief-porn/

..which has a photo of a similar section of a WH Smith to the one I saw (just skimmed the article, so don't blame me if the guy who wrote it turns out to be a conspiracy theorist or w/e).

The supernatural romance section has at least quite amusing book covers featuring hott goffs apparently wanting to get they fuck on.

Yeah, cause morbid teenagers have never been half in love with easeful death before.

And it certainly existed when I were a mournful teenage goth - Anne Rice, Tannith Lee, etc.

Tragic live stories is just misery pr0n and I'm not having it.

― OCD Soundsystem (Masonic Boom)

OTM

Tragic Life Stories

TLS is the worst, I can write off supernatural romance cos at least it has romance in it, but wallowing in abusive lives is just fucked up to me.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/9c/Tragic_Life_Stories.jpg

good stuff that.

the Tragic Life Stories stuff bothers me because I have really no idea what the mindset of the reader is, especially since that readership includes people like my lovely, caring and sensitive mum and aunt. I really don't get what they're getting from it, it bears no relation to what I know them to be. See also: women's magazines with stories of people who had their face rot off or accidentally got married to their dad or were murdered by necrophiliac cannibals or some such.

pretty much cool with sexy vampires.

I can never quite figure out if the appeal of TLS is a kind of morbid tourism by people who have otherwise pretty dull and routine lives - or if it's a comparative thing of people who have pretty miserable lives themselves, going "ah, well, at least I can be thankful it isn't as bad as all that."

I think there's probably some genuine empathy going on plus a morbid cast of mind that isn't necessarily self-recognised? Goths get to "act out" and aren't necessarily any more depressive than people like those I know who will read the tragic life stories on the regular but not think of themselves as being obsessed with darkness or whatever.

In retrospect, I can't help but wonder if the revolt felt against "grief porn" is some kind of muted misogyny - no one seems to complain when there are 6 shelves worth of books devoted to "war porn" - and yet those stories are somehow shielded with the weight of "History" and all that, even though that band-of-brothers war porn crap is equally exploitative and questionable.

Merdeyeux OTM about the 'TLS/TRUE CRIME magazine crossover.

misery fetish

Does TLS refer just to non-fiction?

I think we know what kind of dobber likes his true war books tho. There's a place for serious history/sociology of abusive families just like there is a place for serious histories of war. I don't think any of the peeps on here are saying that the subject matter itself is the problem. Also you could argue that True Murder books are a clear forerunner of the Tragic Life Story, and I think the audience for those books is probly a lot more gender-mixed?

xp Originally the intention was that these books were "SEE THIS IS REAL LIFE" non-fiction, but several books were found out to have been completely made up or at least heavily exaggerated, so publishers and book shops covered themselves by referring to them as TLS.

I think the audience for those books is probly a lot more gender-mixed?

I don't know about that, really

Do you see these magazines anymore, actually?

True crime seems a bit of a different bag since there the focus is on the crime/criminal rather than the victim, I think.

My mother loves fictional TLS-type films, and I think she'd own up to her gothiness if she knew what that meant (her career was to work with cancer and AIDS patients as a nurse, so she's lived the goth life; dinner conversations as a kid were regularly "oh, Mr. So-and-So died today, I was holding his hand as he died, could you pass the peas please?"

Do you see these magazines anymore, actually?

My driving instructor reads them. There's a dude I am really not sure about.

check the back seat before every lesson imo

I've been watching (and enjoying) True Blood - it's pretty goofy and rollicking so again it would be hypocritical to outright diss this genre - just gothy stuff. But I have a serious issue with tragic life stories. Part of it is because of the aforementioned "wallowing in others' misery" aspect, but also because it represents the kind of person (usually, yes, a middle-aged Mail-reading woman) who has such little imagination that she won't enjoy a book unless it's a) a true story b) something that boils her blood about "society today" or some shite c) called something like "Mummy Make Him Stop". The same person would probably recoil at a horror movie or claim that anything in the least bit fantastical is silly and unrealistic.

See, the inherent sexism and ageism in posts like Dog Latin's make me question the kneejerk reaction as some kind of straw woman-ism.

someone present the demographics before this gets awfully tiresome

my mum isn't a Daily Mail reader she's a very nice lady. :'(

that's it, next time I see her I'm extensively interviewing her on this subject.

Oh, sorry, I forgot. It's OK to have long, tedious, drawn-out discussions of race on ILX, but if you try to address gender stereotypes, that's "tiresome". Right, never mind.

x-post

can buy the inherent and unrecognised gothiness for my aunt tho, when she was younger she wore black so often that one of her friend's mum's thought she was in mourning. Dunno why she grew up in the 1850s tbh.

it's not because they're a woman or they read the mail that i have a problem with it kate.

actually, yeah it is cos they read the Mail.

tiresome on either side. if dog latin's suggestion that most of the market for these magazines is middle aged women is a major problem, can we find some demographics pls.

Okay, long drawn out stereotyping aside, no one can argue that these books, their descriptions and covers are quite obviously aimed at a particular social set; same as the supernatural romance ones are aimed at goth and emo teens.

"A Child Called It" is very popular amongst roofers and builders, I hear.

I'm not being rude or anything, but seriously - one thing I do *not* want to hear, is 20-something cis, hetero men debating how *awful* stuff aimed at middle aged women is. As evidenced, the likelihood of your handling this with any kind of sensitivity or tact or understanding is slim to none.

I'm willing to hear women out on why they think this stuff is marketed to them, and why "we" (speaking as a middle aged woman who is *not* a "Daily Mail Reader") respond to said marketing (if we do or don't.)

But trotting out these tired old stereotypes of resentfulness against the "lack of imagination" of middle aged women (as if middle aged middle class men are such bastions of imaginativity?) is just not helpful or useful. And this thread will be tiresome indeed if it continues on this level.

sexy vampires

Really can't get behind the Painful Lives trend, except to the extent that it's part of the same continuum of voyeurism that gives us this kind of thing.

20-something cis, hetero men debating how *awful* stuff aimed at middle aged women is.

shocked at this stereotyping

I'm willing to hear women out

shocked at this sexism

I said before that my dad was a fan of this stuff. Kate I entirely agree with yr point re: hidden sexism but tbh the same stuff is at play in the "aw ain't it cute" patronage of teen vampire fiction. darragh's quite write that without a demographic breakdown on who buys and reads Tragic Life Stories we're arguing in the dark about the target audience, and whilst you understandably wanna correct bone-headed generalisations about that audience sometimes maybe muttering "jaysus" and rolling yr eyes would be less derailing? (Secret of why I often zing - saves time repeating the obvious).

You said yourself that misery pr0n is unappealing and I think most of us are on the same page here.

Although I think that misery porn is unappealing, NV, the thing is, the kneejerk reactions that some people on this thread have had towards the implied audience are even *more* unappealing to me.

Well yeah no argument.

Back to the point of why people find this pleasurable tho? Obviously pleasurable is a weird word to use but people don't read these books for some academic purpose so there must be some kind of unexamined pleasure in it. Maybe a lot of us have some yearning to experience horror and disaster but third hand is safe?

Same appeal as for other types of drama, whether real life or not? The escapist fantasy- although possibly a little darker in terms of maybe putting oneself in the position of either a murderer or victim?

See that's psychologically interesting to me cos I don't think I've ever fantasised about being a murderer or a victim and it seems very o_O to my easy-going mindset.

just wanted to make it clear that as a 20-something hetero male, what i meant by my earlier post is that i hate all middle aged women unconditionally.

I suspect that vampires wearing gap is less romantic, kind of objectively? Gap isn't very gothic or old-night-y. Dunno, probably it's just Ann Radcliffe is awesome, oh great, look, more shit like Ann Radcliffe, I've got to have it.

Plus 18th Century prose, even workmanlike 18th Century prose, is more beautiful and interesting to us now than the 21st Century hack equivalent.

So many of these things look like straight-up Gorey illustrations, so yeah, it is the appeal of the antique and it's got a charming distance and even more escapism. The past is a foreign country, vampires are evil agents of foreign sexiness, put them together, and ta-da!

http://www.valancourtbooks.com/images/impenetrablesecretxl.jpg

It's also interesting, how much of the "Gothic Novel" (and indeed the 19th Century fascination with The Past) was reaction against the Industrial Revolution - the shocking appeal of the unspeakable ancient (now that's a Valancourt title if ever I heard one) as counter to the early movements of the mass produced.

So it's weird how much of SR is "Gap-wearing" - given that I would class a big-R Romantic obsession with the supernatural as being a rejection of mass production, conformity, etc.

Or is Twilight, etc. really that much different from The Lost Boys - gang of cool (but evil) mates as essentially another form of "let's all be different together" conformity?

It's also interesting, how much of the "Gothic Novel" (and indeed the 19th Century fascination with The Past) was reaction against the Industrial Revolution - the shocking appeal of the unspeakable ancient (now that's a Valancourt title if ever I heard one) as counter to the early movements of the mass produced.

Whilst I've no doubt there's some truth in that, a lot of the key Gothic novels lie a fraction too early to be responding to the Industrial Revolution itself I think. Was reading a good art history of Gothic this year that points to Gothic revival happening almost as soon as Classical architecture started to appear in the UK - over here it was wrapped heavily in an Englishness vs Them Continentals debate. (Hence obsessions with Catholicism and the Exotic, I guess.)

The Gap thing and the Lost Boys (and Buffy, natch) is a result of Goth shifting quite heavily off its art historical moorings - Gothic signifiers for early 80s Brits being taken from Hollywood reimaginings of the Gothic in the 30s, or German horror flicks in the 20s? But sprinkled with Punk and therefore The Modern.

Goth ain't what it used to be, in other words, and so it becomes more and more co-optable and a lot of old-school signifiers fall by the wayside as it happens.

To the point that 'black 3/4 length leather coat' = goth?

Goth now Goth is riddled with Punk and Metal yeah and is a different beast to Gothic but then Gap Goth is different again and I haven't got time to think that thru yet

That is true, NV - I know this from studying architecture, the rivalry between the Gothic and the Palladian being "us vs. continentals" - and perhaps the reaction against the Industrial Revolution hit mainstream culture a little later, in the time of Arts & Crafts, but it is still kind of thing.

Wondering about the shift from Vampires = punky outsider freaks & nerds* --> Vampires = "cool" kids in Gap is also about the mainstreamisation of a lot of what was "indie" culture before. Hence it becomes just about fashion rather than subculture signifiers.

*not sure where Buffy sits here, because the vampire slayers in Buffy were more nerdy indie kids, with the vampires somewhere entirely (moping-vamp and emo-Spike being the exceptions)

Vampires = somewhere ELSE entirely. So much of Buffy read to me like the "punks vs. art fags" dichotomy of my own teen years. With Goths being viewed as suspect fence-sitters by both sides.

...in that it was the fight of two subcultures, rather than subculture vs. mainstream.

I don't even know what that means any more, in such an instant culture.

With Goths being viewed as suspect fence-sitters by both sides.

haha

re. the Augustine bit: he also emphasizes that he loved tragic theater because it let him ~feel strongly~ without having to suffer "real" causes of those feelings. It ends up leading into a discussion of how misery porn is related to sexual porn, which is an obvious point to everyone on this thread since we're using the term misery *porn* w/o objection.

Well, obviously, I used the term "misery *PORN*" to signify that it is eavesdropping on someone else's experiences in order to get an emotional reward. That's kind of inherent in the term.

I can agree that he is *feeling strongly* by proxy - but I just disagree that it's "mercy" he's feeling.

right, it is obvious---I wonder if there's more to say about the appeal of TLS than what you said: "eavesdropping on someone else's experiences in order to get an emotional reward." That sounds sufficient to me! Well, I guess the question then is, why does eavesdropping on someone else's *miserable* experiences give an emotional *reward*? I guess you could ask the same thing about sexual porn, & I'm not sure I can explain it in that case either.

Then again, isn't the viewing/consuming of *all* art, about experiencing emotions by proxy?

Though, that said, had a mild "a-ha" moment just a minute ago, that that might be my internal line in the sand between porn (of all stripes, not just the sexual kind) and art/literature/erotica etc. There's something about porn which is inherently exploitative and one-way.

While with "art" of any stripe, the purpose is some kind of communication or expression, and it is a two-way (or more) experience, even if it's voyeur and exhibitionist. Something produced as porn is produced solely with the reaction of the viewer in mind, rather than the self expression of the producer.

That said, I can't be bothered to expand further or defend this thought right now, it's ill formed and still embryonic.

that was kind of an x-post but it sort of answers your question anyway.

There's a lot of otm in this thread; Sexy Vampires don't feel like a new thing, just a massive widening of a cultural current. TLS books are a bit weirder: I think the misery/mercy porn, and cathartic playing out of anxieties for children are major drivers. Also a suffering-as-authenticity desire for 'reality' mixed in there maybe? A lot of them are regionally or culturally localised - story of an East End horrible childhood, a Dublin horrible childhood ('Ma, He Sold me for a Few Cigarettes'), horrible childhood in the British African community etc. Think there might be some odd social history/identity strengthening thing going on.

How do these books end? If it's with redemption and success - and they must at least be 'I lived to write this tale' – then I s'pose they have an inspiring element as well.

Take a Break magazine (sells 900,000ish) and its ilk, as mentioned upthread, are connected. Reality/authenticity/local weirdness there too - every big story will feature a moment where the sufferers over-specify where they live - "we rushed back to our home in Sidemoor, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire". (They might even give road names?)

Obviously tragic life stories is the weirder genre - supernatural romance is just a bit of teen escapism.

Yes, but not just teens - they're a big commuter read for 20-40somethings. Was sat between two women both with True Blood novels recently. Maybe I should have introduced them.

'Ma, He Sold me for a Few Cigarettes'

I always have to stifle a giggle at this title.

Yeah, I see it and just think that comedians might as well give up on trying to think of comically extreme names for parody TLS books, because Martha Long is well ahead of you, and serious.

I read some study that said women who read romance novels have better sex lives & more orgasms, so that can't be a bad thing.

Tragic life stories, OTOH – it's hard to say anything too mean about them because they tend to be memoirs. I'm really not going to criticize someone who's been abused that seriously for writing a book about it. I have a slight complaint about it, that I think people who are really into this genre tend to identify this kind of extreme as What Abuse Is. Like if a kid is just getting tossed around and verbally debased, but isn't made to sleep on the radiator in his own pee, then it's not really abuse. It makes subtler (and far more common) forms of abuse invisible in a way I am uncomfortable with (and that I could also be completely making up).

What's even stranger to me is fiction, a certain type of postmodern fiction especially but also stuff like Precious, that channels the tragic life stories genre. Por ejemplo I just read The Notebook by Agota Kristof & there's so much child abuse and molestation in it (one example: a developmentally delayed girl gets "fucked to death" by soldiers) that a strict summary of the plot would probably be assumed to be one of those child abuse memoirs. It's first person from the kids' perspective and everything. I took a postmodern fiction class last semester and I really got the rolleye when I asked why there was so much physical & sexual abuse in these novels. It was reacted to as though I had said a very gauche question, as though I had missed the point of everything. A lot of them did feel like Tragic Life Stories memoirs, though!

xpost JUH I assumed that was a parody title alongside dog latin's "Have A Nice Sit Down And A Cuppa Tea". or is that real too? I just don't know any more. :'(

Given that so much of misery porn is about terrible things done to children

There's something significant in here, I'm pretty sure. Like the avid interest in the Victorian consumptive orphan who dies but inspires the wicked overseer to reform, validating the dead girl's senseless and unnecessary suffering and death through her selflessness. For a culture that goes crazy to show how CONCERNED we are for the children, we sure do like stories about how bad things can be for them. Some kind of deification of the IDEA of childhood, whether you think kids are spiritually pure (Victorian), or developmentally pure (modern), it's just suit of feelings that people put on.

I took a postmodern fiction class last semester and I really got the rolleye when I asked why there was so much physical & sexual abuse in these novels. It was reacted to as though I had said a very gauche question, as though I had missed the point of everything. A lot of them did feel like Tragic Life Stories memoirs, though!

This is when I don't miss being an English major. At all.

Noticed today that Waterstone's now has a Dark Fantasy section, distinct from SF/Fantasy and Horror. All the books in it seemed to have vampires on the cover.

At least the one in Camden does. Maybe it's just that one due to being in Goth Central.

Sitting here I just had to say "Dark Fantasy" out loud in a scary gothic voice.

Teen Fantasy, ?Goth Fantasy?- have seen these sections in different waterstones and similar outlets

may be imagining goth fantasy tbh

teen fantasy might be something different, i think

go on

failed joke, that's all

;_; rip joek

Never quite realised how many 19th century vampire/werewolf novels had been written. You'd think there'd be an enormous market for period adaptations/reimaginings today among the Gapvamp generation?

isn't that what we're seeing, really?

I don't think a 21st Century High School remake of Varney the Vampire would have an audience, they're 2 distinct genres afaic

pfft well obviously you'd have to update it

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

https://twitter.com/DawnHFoster/status/412232434269577216

that's life! perfects the form.

'A ghost gave me triplets'

Because the world's so fucked up that just one messiah isn't going to be enough this time...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biL6zAMkOQs
"Just one messiah,
was not enough
Please send down triplets
shit's getting rough!"

Fascinated by those models on the front of Real Life magazines. Smiling, pacific, nameless hostess, quelling panic. Untouched and sexless amid the chaos and carnage.

That santa a bit too sexy imo.

in terms of the audience viewing itself thru tragic life stories i think we haven't explored the connections between this and your Jeremy Kyles enough, i.e. there is a lot of class stuff at play in here too, we was poor but we never abused no-one etc

When I've picked up a Real Life Tragedy book, or watched Kyle, or read one of the many magazines that have the same material, I have one reaction that's the same to all of them (beyond my particular reactions to each one) and that is: How am I helping by reading/watching/hearing this? Wouldn't it be more useful to read a professional study on, say, domestic abuse, life in the criminal world, or etc, in as much as I'd then be armed with data, that would then influence my decisions for the better (when voting, when thinking about how to parse such a situation that might occur close to me, etc).

There's something properly disorientating about the shifts in subject matter on these magazines' cover lines, stories about overweight pets or whatever next to real staring into the abyss type stuff, also the way the the captions are all written in the exact same tone

Yep and I think the abyss/abuse stories are pretty much being lowered to the level of overweight pet stories in that case.

The Tomes of Real Life Tragedy at least have no doubts about how Serious and Tragic the abuse is.

I think I read a defense of 'tragic life stories' books by Julie Burchill, she thought that the distaste for them was down to this middle class snobbery/feeling it was vulgar to make money out of this your own tragedy, I think she argued that the least you were entitled to do if you had suffered this kind of abuse was to make some money and tell your side of the story? Which seems fair enough, I suppose most of the queasiness here is in how the audience respond to the books.

and obv this defense doesn't work as well for magazines where your side of the story is fed through the sausage making machine and advertised as if the most significant element was the involvement of a santa costume or whatever.