A Thriller By Any Other Name…
I’ve written here before about legendary reviewer Oline Cogdill’s term “family thriller.” Until I started reading Oline’s reviews, I didn’t know what kind of books I most loved to read (or even what I wrote)!
But it’s true. The thing that really gets me by the craw in a story is your everyday, average family just about to cross a perilous line. How thin the margin is between dread and normal.
The family thriller shows us that. And then, thank goodness, it usually shows us a way out. The characters emerge altered, yet stronger. What more uplifting message is there than that? I think that’s why I find the act of reading some pretty devastating plots more enjoyable than harrowing, even though the events certainly are pretty much the definition of the latter.
Because I’m so enraptured by Oline’s concept, I noticed when a review site, also mentioned here before, used the term “domestic suspense.” They were talking about Linwood Barclay, who’s been one of my favorite authors since he was first published in the US.
Could it be that awareness of the concept is widening? Are family thrillers a subset of suspense…or even a genre unto themselves?
Here are a few more of my favorites.
Lisa Unger. Gillian Flynn. Laura Lippman’s standalones. The master, Harlan Coben.
If you have another great addition to this category, please write and add it to the list…
I think they sound related but separate. My friend Leanne, a bookstore worker and reading JUNKIE gave me a thriller/suspense division that goes like this: A thriller happens in a very condensed period of time–hours or days, not longer, and has action at least every 10 pages. a longer time or a slower space would bump it into suspense. So a family thriller (it would seem) would be acute crisis (kidnapping, predator, accident) where domestic suspense probably would have a slower build with more psychology to it. (maybe the ‘evil force’ whatever it is, affects ONE and then it trickles to the rest… or it is insidious and slower). It seems intuitively right. And like you, this is among my favorite stuff. I guess the reality is my timelines aren’t tight enough and my psychology too deep to be thriller, which makes me a ‘family’ or ‘domestic’ suspense writer on my ‘on my own’ stuff (though giving the mystery thing a try)
Comment by Hart — April 5, 2010 @ 7:24 pm
That’s an interesting distinction, Hart–I was thinking of them as synonymous. Have to go back and re-categorize!
Comment by jenny — April 6, 2010 @ 9:23 am