A major difference between “serious” and “soothing” literature, as Northrop Frye proposed in his conclusion to Literary History of Canada, from 1965, is that one challenges the existing order while the other reaffirms it. Serious works prod the reader toward “making the steep and lonely climb into the imaginative world.” Soothing books, on the other hand, encourage one “to remain within his habitual social responses.”
Paradoxically, there are few genres more soothing than the thriller. Although these suspenseful, plot-driven narratives are designed to get hearts pounding, palms sweating, and pages turning, they don’t push readers into a lonely imaginative world. Rather, they make readers hyper-aware of their own physicality as well as their place within the established order.
Canadians seem to have an appetite for this reassurance. A 2021 study by BookNet Canada showed thrillers to be the second most purchased genre, after fantasy, accounting...
Alexander Sallas was previously the Literary Review of Canada’s assistant publisher.
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