“I think literary is shorthand for appreciated, and commercial is shorthand for sells.”
Justin Cronin‘s latest book, The Passage, is “vastly different from his previous work, which reflects his literary pedigree from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Harvard: a bunch of short stories, novellas and two serious literary novels, one of which won a PEN/Hemingway award.”
In what ways is the Passage different? First, it is about vampires. Second, it has made Cronin a lot of cash.