It’s 600 pages you can read in a weekend, a supersized Slurpee that will satiate you and leave behind a sugar high. “ Plain Bad Heroines,” a queer historical meta-novel by Emily Danforth with at least a dozen layers of formal flourish, is joyfully and delightfully middlebrow I say this with reverence in my tone and adoration in my heart. But there are times when a reader wants nothing more, and nothing less, than an exquisitely plotted, winkingly crafted romp. A lot of perfectly fine books settle there, and we probably should leave them be. The term “middlebrow” still has the same stink about it as “mediocre.” Neither brain-tingling high-mindedness nor mass-market easy reading, too intensive for drugstore shelves but beneath the notice of online critical banter, middlebrow fiction is tucked away in a hidden valley between profit and prestige. If you buy books linked on our site, The Times may earn a commission from, whose fees support independent bookstores.
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