The Importance of Art in Literature, in Review

Months before I opened Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections (2001), I admired Lynn Buckley’s cover design. On the lower third of the cover – beneath the author’s name in bold, white caps and the title’s textured, orange lettering – a Rockwell inspired scene depicts two boys and the lower half of a woman, whose red nailed fingers grip a serving plate on which squats a fat-glossed turkey. Clad in a windowpane plaid jacket, the younger boy in the lower left purses his lips and furrows his brow to suggest (I imagine) defiance, hunger, sleepiness, or any number of discomforts we have all felt at one dinner party or another while sitting ignored at the end of the table, waiting for the gnashing to commence.

In his discussion about the cover art of Freedom (2010) in Talking Covers, a website that explores the production and importance of book covers through interviews with the authors, artists, and designers, Franzen describes a successful cover as “visually arresting and true to the feel and content of the book; it should also, ideally, look like nothing else.”[1] Franzen’s conclusions speak to the complex aesthetic, thematic, and commercial functions of art in literature, related to but different from the concerns of art in galleries or museums. Just as it is to the novel (albums, textbooks, sheet music, etc.), visual art is integral to the sale and production of literary magazines, e.g. Berkeley Fiction Review.

Quite simply, good cover art and design help our journal stand out in bookstores and attract buyers. (Note to fellow small-time editors and publishers: In Talking Covers, Franzen quotes friend and novelist Donald Antrim as saying, “It’s well known in publishing that green covers never sell.”)[2] In addition to attracting buyers, art serves as a contemplative counterpoint to the stories in Berkeley Fiction Review. It allows for pause between short stories, bridges thematic elements, cultivates deeper catharsis, evokes new associations, and inspires more thoughtful analysis.

A former English major, I converted to art history after a semester of waking up in the black, leather chairs of Gardner Main Stacks, novel-of-the-midweek resting on my thighs and dry mouth pointing skylightward in a perpetual “‘O’, shit”. The anxiety of neglecting material, assigned or not, mounted until I quit reading altogether for a few months. With a countenance much like the little boy’s on the cover – uneasy, tired, obstinate – I approached The Corrections many times before I opened the alluring cover: I surfed the Internet, raided the pantry, or took a nap rather than take my place at the intellectual table and eat up Franzen’s delicious offer.

The decision to check out or buy a book and subsequently read it hinges on more than reviews and recommendations. Many, and not only picky buyers (say, people who shop around for majors until senior year), rely in part on cover art to make a selection. Good design and thought-provoking art, like Buckley’s cover for The Corrections, often inspire reading’s first step: picking up a book. I look forward to helping choose the artwork for Issue 37 of Berkeley Fiction Review so that we may inspire readers to notice our journal among shelves full of enticing works, showcase visual artists in addition to writers, and publish a journal that provides a richer and more diverse reflection of society.

— Clare Suffern, BFR Managing Editor 

Illustration by Charles Ellik, Berkeley Fiction Review, Issue 16

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1. Sean Manning, “Freedom,” Talking Covers, July 17, 2012, https://talkingcovers.com/2012/07/17/freedom/.
2. Ibid.