ABSTRACT
This chapter draws on cultural materialism and considers novels as explicit cultural practices of communication created within a historically specific society and produced under particular social, economic, and political conditions. It explores the publishing history of thirty-five newspaper novels written during the interwar era of 1919-1938. These works, which address the working conditions of US reporters, span a variety of themes and approaches, including adventure stories, mysteries, romances, and career books, as well as social-protest fiction. The chapter considers the influence on these novels of realism, the dominant popular-culture literary form of the day, along with the background of the authors, their experiences as working journalists, and the strategies they utilize to enhance the realism of their novels. Interest in fiction is widespread, and anywhere from fifty thousand to two hundred thousand copies of popular novels are generally sold; the top novels eventually sell five hundred thousand to million-plus copies.
