While critics have celebrated Mohsin Hamid’s “Exit West,” George Saunders’ “Lincoln in the Bardo” and other works, no 2017 releases have approached the sales or the impact of such older titles as Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” and George Orwell’s “1984.” Publishers wonder if it’s a familiar syndrome, the Trump effect, with the public too caught up in the headlines to focus on new and challenging fiction.
“People are indeed distracted, and there’s no sign of it letting up,” says Paul Bogaards, an executive vice president and executive director of publicity at the Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group. “Many are weary from their social feeds — mentally exhausted — and some, perhaps, are simply choosing to binge watch their favorite television series and eat copious amounts of ice cream rather than read a contemporary, literary novel.