How a 1,000-page Paul Auster novel converted me to ‘healing fiction’

Among the more literary-minded,

healing cosy fiction

has amassed quite the tiresome reputation, eliciting eye rolls. These more “advanced” readers have come to regard a regular presence on bestsellers lists as a negative indicator of quality.

The theory goes: The more people like a thing, the less likely it is to be good. I’m reminded of the film Blue Moon (2025) by Richard Linklater, in which actor Andrew Scott as American composer Richard Rodgers, in defence of his popular musical Oklahoma! (1943), exclaims self-righteously: “You’re telling me 1,600 people are wrong?”