Phil who blogs at Brandywine Books and at Collected Miscellany sent me an email asking my opinion about Christian fiction in general and Levi’s Will by Dale Cramer in particular. Phil said I should post my reply, and since it’s the only coherent snippet of writing I’ve been able to do in the last couple of days, I will.

Yes, it’s (Levi’s Will) definitely Christian fiction. I don’t think a secular publisher would have published it, but I don’t know that much about the publishing world. I could be mistaken.

I do think Levi’s Will “breaks the mold” to some extent. First of all, it’s a male-centered book without being sci-fi or thriller. The female characters in the book are not well-developed and are not the focus of the book. It’s also Christ-centered without being preachy. It has different kinds of Christians with different understandings of their faith, including a rather legalistic father, a friend who doesn’t attend church but knows and lives the gospel nevertheless, and the main character who lives a life of lies and comes to see how destructive that kind of life can be.

I’ve read three good books so far this year that I would consider “Christian fiction” in the sense that they focus on characters who are struggling to live out some sort of orthodox Christian faith in a fallen world. One was Levi’s WIll; the other two were Peace Like a River by Leif Enger and Gilead by Marilynne Robinson. The publication of the the latter two by secular mainstream publishers (and the Pulitzer Prize for Gilead) indicates to me that those publishers are open to Christian themes and characters in well-written books.

Oh, I forgot Acts of Faith by Philip Caputo. I don’t think a Christian publisher or imprint would have anything to do with that book, but it’s definitely exploring Christian ideals and how those ideals become compromised.

I did read a couple of other fiction books published by Christian publishers this year, and I do know exactly what the complaint is. The plots are thin and kind of boring, and the Christian characters are too good to be true–and too preachy to be very likeable. Or some of the novels are poor imitations of books and genres that were/are popular in the secular world. See this article about “Christian chick-lit.” Although I haven’t read the author featured in the article, I doubt if I would enjoy baptized chick lit since the unbaptized sort doesn’t appeal to me.

Phil is discussing this issue of the state of Christian fiction at Brandywine Books.
Also Dan Edelen at Cerulean Sanctum.
An old post from Jared at Mysterium Tremendum.