City Magazine and Conservative Fiction

I got a note from Ben Plotinsky the other day asking me to include City Magazine on my Conservative Magrack. I added a short write up. We exchanged a couple of emails and I got on the subject of conservative fiction. This was my latest missive:

Thanks for the kind words. I think such periodicals as City Magazine are creating a wedge into the liberal culture that has been prevalent in this country since the Great Depression. The next thing I hope to see is better Conservative fiction writing, novels, screenplays, etc. When this happens we will be able to fight on a more equal footing with the left. As editor www.ConservativeBookstore.com I get a fair number of books sent my way and though more and more conservatives are making efforts in this regard, I get the feeling that they are more ideologists than artists. Instead of letting conservative ideas pervade their work, they are cloaking their view of the world with a thin sheen of fictional plot. I can't tell you how many books I have read, political thrillers, that have a Hillary like figure as president; scary yes; original no. These authors are trying to pound the liberal ideological gnats with conceptual sledgehammers. If we had more writers like Tom Wolfe I would be happy.

Perhaps the saving grace in the world of current fiction is that it is difficult to write good fiction that does not at least nod to practical reality, which is what conservative thought must be. And as for mysteries and thrillers, negotiations with the bad guy always break down and inevitably he always gets it in the end.