So, realistic contemporary fiction is written and set more or less in the present

[conuly]

But time moves on. What, exactly, do you call "realistic contemporary fiction" once it's no longer contemporary? It's not exactly historical fiction either, since writers of historical fiction generally make specific choices in bringing the past to life, ideally with few or no whoppers of mistakes.

I sometimes say "then-contemporary", but... well, it sounds a bit silly, doesn't it?

(On a related note, it looks like now people are less likely to say "issues book" and more likely to say "social issues book", is that accurate? I'm not loving a change that involves using more words to get to the same meaning, but okay.)

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Comments

[adrian_turtle]

Oh, it's more of a problem for finding books! You can read the latter books in the Anne Shirley or Betsy-Tacy series without noticing they are World War 1 books. They are realistic books about girls who love books, and their friend groups.

For that context, you pretty much have to talk about "when is it set?" and "when was it written?" as two different questions. And if a person doesn't remember author or title, they're not likely to remember "when was it written?" Not beyond "before 1992" or "my mom read it when she was in high school, so it must have been before 1960."

[conuly]

It can be like pulling teeth to even get people to say that much. "Oh, everybody knows what a long time ago means!" and "Oh, I have no idea when I could've read it! Why do you keep asking me?" (Because no, they don't all agree, and yes, I think you do have some idea if you read this book closer to 2020 or to 1980!)

And one time "Wow, that's a really stalkery question, you creep" which - buddy, knowing you read this book in the UK in the 1990s is not going to help me identify you. This information isn't classified, you're not in witness protection, just freaking give me a decade and a country.

[adrian_turtle]

Or a lot of times the date is really not clear. Cress Delahanty is another realistic book, from whose introduction I got the phrase "girls who love books about girls who love books." I read it sometime after 2000, based on my memory of which library I checked it out of, but I blithely assumed that Cress was my own age. Teenaged in the 1980s, or maybe a little older. (She didn't watch TV, but her family lived way out in the country where there wouldn't have been TV reception anyway.) I was really a bit shocked to discover she was older than my parents. Would have been older. She seems so real.

[conuly]

Sure, but if you can tell me "I read this around 9/11" then I know it has to have been published before the year 2005. Or if you say "It was on the new releases shelf sometime just before the pandemic" then I know it was published sometime between 2018 - 2021. (People make mistakes.)

[adrian_turtle]

Unfortunately, being on the "New Releases Shelf" provides no information whatsoever. A new edition of Pride and Prejudice with a cute YA cover will be on the new books shelf at many libraries, even though the story inside that cover was first published more than 200 years ago. (I expect it's hard to identify a book that's inspired a lot of transformative work.)

[spiralsheep]

I used to offer help identifying certain ge-/palaeont-/archae-ology finds and the reactions to "Roughly where was it found?" usually implied they thought I was either an axe-murderer, a professional thief, or an undercover police officer, lmao.

[conuly]

I get that we all like privacy, but sometimes it's not that urgent.

[thekumquat]

This reminds me of when I read the Anne Shirley books, after having the first one read to me at school age 8. I got the last three from a library after I moved, so was 10. Judging by ice-cream and cars being rare, I'd assumed it took place in my parents' era, so 1940s into the 50s.

Imagine my surprise when WWI started so it had to be 1914...