Airport novel represent a literary genre that is not so much defined by its plot or cast of stock characters, as much as it is by the social function it serves. An airport novel is typically a fairly long but fast-paced boilerplate genre-fiction novel commonly found in the reading fare offered by airport newsstands, "read for pace and plot, not elegance of phrasing". Considering the marketing of fiction as a trade, airport novels occupy a niche similar to the one that once was occupied by pulp magazines and other reading materials typically sold at newsstands and kiosks to travellers. In French, such novels are called romans de gare, "railway station novels", suggesting that publishers in France were aware of this potential market at a very early date. The somewhat dated Dutch term 'stationsroman' is a calque from French. Designed to meet the demands of a very specific market, airport novels are superficially engaging while not being necessarily profound as they are usually written as to be more entertaining than philosophically challenging.
Format
Airport novels are typically mass-marketpaperback books. Their titles are often printed in a gilded, silvery or vividly scarlet finish, which more often than not starts very quickly to dissolve and stick to the reader's fingertips. This is not a problem for their intended purpose; they are made to be bought on impulse, and their readers often discard them when finished. Airport novels are typically quite long books; a book that a reader was able to finish before the journey was done would similarly be unsatisfying. Because of this length, the genre attracts prolific authors, who use their output as a sort of branding; each author is identified with a certain sort of story, and produces many variations of the same thing. Well-known authors' names are usually in type larger than the title on the covers of airport novels, often in embossed letters.
Themes
Airport novels typically fall within a number of other fictional genres, including:
Whatever the genre, the books must be fast-paced and easy to read. The description "airport novel" is mildly pejorative; it implies that the book has little lasting value, and is useful chiefly as an inexpensive form of entertainment during travel. Airport novels are sometimes contrasted with literary fiction; so that a novel with literary aspirations would be disparaged by the label.
Writers of airport novels
Writers whose books have been described as airport novels include:
On this theme, the animated television seriesThe Simpsons included a joke in the episode "The Joy of Sect", in which an airport bookstore is named "JUST CRICHTON AND KING". Hans Moleman asks, "Do you have anything by Robert Ludlum?" and is immediately told by the clerk to get out.
