You know that meme/quote “Not x or y, but a secret third thing” — yeah, that’s basically me for most of this essay, because we obviously have nonfiction subgenres but what I’m talking about is that secret third thing. This might sound like a mumbo jumbo mess while you read it but this general idea has been a brainchild of mine for so long I wanna put it into the words I have right now to perhaps expand on it with time.
We have biographies, we have memoirs, we have self-help books and we have essay-collections. But do we truly have the opposite weight for young adult fiction or even just YA Romance? Do we have “old(er)” adult nonfiction? You probably think of memoirs and I don’t disagree with them fitting the description the best, but they don’t quite scratch the itch of what feel when I say OA nonfiction. Nonfiction isn’t just a retelling of a life, a storytelling of anecdotes or the self-help section. It’s this third thing, that mixes all of those and infuses it with actual wisdom from a lived life. I feel like all the nonfiction subgenres I named only get one part of the essence down with memoirs coming closest to it. I feel like this is more of an ageism combined with shitty branding thing. Because there are definitely books out there where I think “that one has it all, I’d call that the essence of OA nonfiction that has wisdom” because those are the books that combine subgenres AND do so with the deliberate plan to market themselves towards both same age peers and the younger generation that might need to hear the wisdom early. I don’t know about you, but I don’t have particularly many memoirs on my TBR. And that’s coming from someone that almost exclusively reads nonfiction. Most of memoirs on my list are from historically important figures or people who survived the unspeakable. Once again, that makes me ask for the secret third thing. Just someone that has lived various lives in a lifetime and collected the wisdom to hand down, but like actually written and branded to be for everyone to read.
You’ll say “but every book is technically for everyone to read and those books exist.” Yes, BUT my problem is that there is no general category they get put into for ease of finding them because not all of them will be memoirs. Wisdom from elders, even in the white western world, should be easier to find without having to limit yourself to the autobiography or memoir section. We’re talking people who survived WW2 bombings as a baby and had three kids during a time where you could actually afford it. I’d certainly like to read three different perspectives on that and the wisdom that came from it. Sure, it exists, but in our fucked up fast world who the fuck has the time to deliberately find those books if they don’t have a specific recommendation or spied it on someone elses TBR? YA fiction is its own overarching section in most book stores and on recommendation pages. Nonfiction by older adults? Always pressed into one of the general nonfiction subgenres. And don’t get me wrong, I understand that it is called YA because the initial target audience is Young Adults, but that doesn’t mean Old(er) Adult Nonfiction would have to follow that theme.
I think for the sheer ease of variety and the middlefinger to subgenres I’d just like there to be this new thing. Will it ever happen? Most likely not. Although I wouldn’t be surprised if it did because the way we currently sort nonfiction seems outdated in general and way too narrow while the fiction writers keep inventing new niche subgenres.
Dear publishers, if you already disrespect what the genre/term YA Romance was supposed to be (smut-free romance), then you might as well start pushing your memoir/self-help mixes of books as a new overarching thing called OA nonfiction or whatever the fuck you wanna call it.
I fear this is more of a vibe thing (you could also just call it book industry branding) than a thing I will be able to exactly describe, but it’s been flying around in the back of my neurodivergent mind for months because I just think it’s neat and makes more sense for the way I personally read. Alternatively fucking rebrand what a memoir is because most people who aren’t avid readers still think of dusty old anecdotes published in a book shortly before or after someone dies when they hear that word. You and I know that’s not what a memoir is, but that zeitgeist around it certainly doesn’t help anyone in discovering the good ones.
Man, I don’t know, I just wanna find good books written by people who give me the same vibes as my matriarchs and all I keep finding in our vague as fuck nonfiction recommendation lists is the 54th national celebrity writing about some weird fucking shit that isn’t relatable to anyone. The publishing industry could to miles better with their marketing if they actually tried new shit like actually romanticizing the wisdom of older people or use their elaborate communications teams to figure out a way to rebrand the genre memoir in the minds of people who still perceive it as something only old boring people have written.
Give me a table in the book store next to the YA Romance that has Viola Davis’ life story next to a book from Edith Eva Eger next to Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief by David Kessler next to When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi next to a Brené Brown book next to The Serviceberry.
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