Genre fiction with a religious bent has long been a hot category, stirred to new heights and greater self-definition more than a decade ago by Frank Peretti and Janette Oke. Now, on the heels of unprecedented bestsellerdom for Tyndale House's Left Behind series of apocalyptic novels, the category is poised for even stronger success. Many of its authors and publishers have achieved a maturity that is fostering a degree of literary sophistication and quality not widely seen in the category before. Catholic, New Age, Jewish and general trade houses are getting into the act, offering both genre novels and more literary titles with unabashedly religious or spiritual themes.

A Good Yarn

A chief factor behind the ascent to a higher quality of fiction at many evangelical Christian publishing houses is a broader recognition of the importance of story and character, along with the attendant demotion of proselytizing to a supporting role. Where once the primary purpose of this Christian fiction was to "spread the good news," it is now to tell a good story and tell it well--and to illuminate the values of the faith along the way. "I think what I am reading more of these days are stories about deeply devout people who are coming to a maturity of their faith and are dealing with all of its conundrums," said J Durepos, a Chicago-based literary agent who specializes in religion and spirituality. "Authors are putting forth characters who are exploring that, and they are putting out some terrific fiction in the process."

Durepos credits the rise in literary quality to the behind-the-scenes work of a handful of publishing executives at a few Christian houses, putting Bethany House's Carol Johnson, Baker Book House's Rebecca Cooper and Tyndale House's Rebekah Nesbitt and Ken Peterson at the top of his list. "These are some brilliant people," he said. "Some of them might get lost in the rank-and-file of publishing because they are not interested in being stars; they're interested in crafting good books."

At Bethany House, v-p of editorial Johnson told PW the first thing she looks for in a manuscript is a really good yarn. "That was our goal from the beginning. We believed story had a much bigger place in the Christian book world than others did at the time." That approach has proven quite successful--their first author, Oke, has sold 18 million copies of her 36 novels--making the house a cornerstone of the category, with 45 new fiction releases, including romance, each year. New titles feature strong stories and historical retellings, including By the Light of a Thousand Stars (Oct.) by Jamie Langston Turner, whose Some Wildflower in My Heart (1998) has sold 85,000 copies. Michael Phillips launched the Caledonia series last June with Legend of the Celtic Stone. Also on the list are Eve's Daughters by Lynn Austin (Oct.) and A Son Comes Home by Joseph Bentz (Aug.).

Cooper, acquisitions editor at Baker, said fiction has become so important to the house "that they would let me publish as many manuscripts a year as I could find." The company's standards are so high, however, that it has so far produced an average of just two fiction titles a year. Baker fiction targets general trade stores. "We have found that more Christians are looking for more literary quality, and they are finding it in those stores," Cooper explained. The strategy has served Baker well. Augusta Trobaugh's Praise Jerusalem! (1997) sold 9000 copies in cloth and paper; her Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb (Jan.) has performed about the same and will be released in paper this February. Also new is Romey's Place by James Calvin Schaap (Oct.), a coming-of-age story about a young, unwanted boy (in Forecasts, Aug. 30., PW called it "an earnest, thoughtful coming-of-age novel").

If Christian fiction has grown from an ugly duckling into a beautiful--and very profitable--swan, much of the credit belongs to Tyndale's Left Behind series by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins. Unless you've been living under a rock, you can't help but have noticed the six fiery-covered books--Assassins (Aug.) is the latest--at the front of most general trade bookstores, especially the chains. The books, themed around end-times prophecy and thus hitting an end-of-millennium nerve for many readers, have sold a combined total of 9.1 million copies, and the last two books, Apollyon and Assassins, made PW's hardcover fiction bestseller list and the New York Times list--a rare feat for religious fiction. Tyndale senior v-p and publisher Ron Beers credits the series' success with nurturing an overall interest in the category among both readers and booksellers who knew little about it before. "What we are finding is that ABA stores are calling us up and saying, 'What else have you got?' " he said. "For us, that is very significant because it means we are able to get some of our other authors in there." One of those authors, Francine Rivers, will kick off a new five-book series about women in Jesus' lineage with Unveiled (May 2000); Beers told PW the company will use Left Behind's leverage to promote her in the general trade stores, too.

Others Join the Fray

The evangelical Protestant publishers aren't the only ones in the game. Catholic publisher Ignatius Press has been enjoying great success with its own end-time series, Children of the Last Days by Michael O'Brien. The first book, Father Elijah: An Apocalypse (1996), has sold 50,000 copies--a very big number for a Catholic house. Plague Journal (Mar.), the fourth book in the six-part series, has brought its author comparisons to C.S. Lewis and Dostoyevski. Anthony Ryan, Ignatius's marketing director, charts an ever-widening interest in religious fiction in the Catholic market over the past five years. "I think there is a culmination of real interest in good novels that have to do with spiritual themes and that there are good writers out there who are responding." Also new from Ignatius are The Hound of Heaven at My Heels by Robert Waldron (Sept.) and The Time Before You Die by Lucy Beckett (Oct.).

Harper San Francisco is also betting on Christian fiction this season with the December reissue of Frederick Buechner's Godric, originally published in 1981, and the May release of his Brendan, which has long been out of print. HSF executive editor John Loudon thinks the market is ripe for literary religious fiction such as the kind Buechner has produced. "There is a really sophisticated market for spirituality, as evidenced by Kathleen Norris and Annie Dillard and Anne Lamott," he noted. "I think bookstores are less negative now about religious fiction. They sell all this other spirituality, why can't they sell fiction?" He also sees an overall willingness on the part of readers to embrace writers outside their own religious traditions. "Before the 1980s, there was Protestant stuff and Catholic stuff, and they would each read their own," he said. "But now there is a lot more crossing of the lines. People are looking for wisdom wherever they can get it."

The achievements of successful publishers of religious fiction have led another handful to test the fiction waters for the first time. Nondenominational Paraclete Press will take its first dive into fiction this month with the release of David Manuel's A Matter of Roses, a murder mystery set in a religious order. Carol Showalter, Paraclete's director of marketing, said the book (the first of three it has contracted with the author) is taking the classics-oriented house into new realms--specifically into the trade and chain stores. "They were very impressed with our presentation," Showalter told PW. "I think there is definitely a place for us in that market." She agrees with Loudon that the way has been paved by such writers as Kathleen Norris in the nonfiction category.

Jewish Lights recently offered its first fiction with Wandering Stars (1998), edited by Jack Dann, a collection of science fiction stories by Jewish authors writing about Jewish protagonists who deal with Jewish religious issues (one story is titled "On Venus Have We Got a Rabbi?"). That title has sold 3700 copies so far, a figure Jewish Lights hopes to surpass with Mystery Midrash (Aug.), edited by Lawrence W. Raphael, a compilation of 13 mystery and detective stories by heavy hitters such as Faye Kellerman and Toni Brill. Again, the authors are all Jewish, as are the protagonists and the issues they face.

With Vision

In the New Age market, a major indicator that fiction is maturing is the recent recognition of "visionary fiction"--composed of spiritual novels that incorporate the metaphysical and supernatural--as a category by the Book Industry Systems Advisory Committee (BISAC). New Leaf, one of the largest New Age distributors, also recently added visionary fiction to its catalogue. "I think we are at the point now where we can see better writing skills and more and more authors coming into this market," said Kathy Cooper, publicist for Hampton Roads, which has an extensive fiction list and helped spearhead the BISAC campaign. "As the market gets used to the category, it will grow even more," she added. Hampton Roads has two recent visionary fiction titles, Authenticator by William Valtos (Feb.), a metaphysical mystery about near-death experiences, and Jonah by Dana Redfield (Apr.), a novel about UFOs. Tenacity Press released its visionary fiction title Spirit Circle by Hal Zina Bennett in 1998.

Major general trade publishers also seem to be showing a rising interest in religious fiction--though few of them will admit it. The "religion" label, it seems, still carries a stigma east of the Mississippi. "I am really uncomfortable with the label 'religious,' " said one editor at a large New York trade house when asked about a book on her list with strong religious elements. "We really think of this as literary fiction. That is how we are marketing it."

Call them what you will, there are more such titles at general trade publishing houses, a trend that Bantam senior editor Pat LoBrutto attributes to reader interest. "[Religious fiction] has been out of fashion for a while, but it is coming back again and is being taken up by people who are not necessarily blindly faithful," she said. Bantam's entry in the category is Walter M. Miller Jr.'s St. Liebowitz and the Wild Horse Woman (1997), a sequel to his first book, A Canticle for Liebowitz, which has been popular enough to stay in print since its 1959 debut.

Viking Penguin, buoyed by the success of Jan Karon's bestselling The Mitford Years series, has signed CBA bestsellers Brock and Bodie Theone to a multi-book deal, the first of which, Jerusalem Vigil (Mar. 2000), will launch the successor series to their earlier Zion Chronicles and Zion Covenant works. Karon will bring the number of Mitford Years titles to six in spring 2001 with A Common Life: A Wedding Story.

In October, Norton released The Ladies Auxiliary by Tova Mirvis, a first novel about a Jewish convert who finds herself in an Orthodox community in Memphis. Early next year, Simon & Schuster will offer Pay It Forward (Feb. 2000) by Catherine Ryan Hyde, a story about the strength of good deeds. Houghton Mifflin has on its backlist God: Stories, edited by C. Michael Curtis (1998), and Ballantine released the paperback of Norman Mailer's The Gospel According to the Son in September. Random House will release E.L. Doctorow's City of God in February 2000; matters of faith are at the core of the new novel.

To Market, to Market

While the task of writing story-driven religious fiction seems to have been accomplished, the next hurdle is to market it successfully. Most evangelical Christian publishers still report a resistance on the part of general trade independents and chain stores to carrying their fiction unless the authors or publisher have a proven track record in their market.

Some Christian publishers don't play up the religious appeal of the author or story when making presentations to those stores. Baker Book House's Rebecca Cooper told PW that the house has promoted Trobaugh's titles as Southern fiction and Schaap's Romey's Place as a coming-of-age story. Those, she noted, "can go anywhere." Showalter said Paraclete emphasized the murder mystery side of A Matter of Roses to buyers from Barnes & Noble, Borders and B. Dalton. And with visionary fiction, the biggest challenge is to get bookstores to shelve it under that rubric so interested readers can find it. "BISAC is a beginning," Kathy Cooper noted. "At least now they know it is there."