Is Our Writer’s Learning: Babayaga (#SFWApro)

Fair warning: Although Babayaga by Toby Barlow is a fantasy, it’s a mainstream literary magical realist novel. And I’m not really a mainstream literary person, so take that it into account when considering my dislike for the book.
The story: Will Van Wyck is an ad agency account manager in 1959 Paris, but he’s also providing information on overseas businesses to the CIA. Just as the ad agency calls him home, he gets involved with the publisher of a literary magazine who’s involved with another spy conspiracy.
Then there’s Zoe, one of the babayagas, a cabal of immortal Russian witches. As the novel opens, her most recent lover is becoming curious why she hasn’t aged in the past few years; she’s bored with him, so she shuts him up by impaling him (much to the displeasure of another witch who believes in disposing of men more subtly). Needless to say, she hooks up with Will and finds herself wondering if he’s one she’d want to keep around.
There’s a lot of weird stuff in here too and this might have made a great Christopher Moore comic novel. But Barlow ain’t no Christopher Moore.
What I Learned: Something I already knew, which is that I really, really hate internal monologues.
And this book is rife with them. People constantly stepping into their flashback booth for long info-dumps about their past, their feelings, their dreams, a lot of it tell and no show.
In short, precisely the sort of writing that supposedly makes a book unworkable. Yet this book got published. So what does that tell me?
•Literary fiction plays by different rules? I’ve seen lots of literary books that use the monologue (A Fortunate Age, referenced at the link above) so maybe it’s a convention of the genre (and yes, I count “literary” as a genre).
•The supposed “rules” of good writing don’t really apply? Yes, everyone says “show don’t tell” but maybe readers (and obviously publishers) actually likes showing. As countless people have pointed out, HP Lovecraft‘s purple prose violates the rules (too many adjectives, way overwritten) but it hasn’t stopped him from becoming a posthumous success and lots of people like his prose (I do, even though I’m conscious of the flaws).
What Else I Learned: Any time a book jacket announces that a book is “a daring, moving exploration of love” or (to quote the War for the Oaks back cover) that it’s “about true love and true friendship” what this means is “There’s a love story in this book. The writer may draw some moral from the story such as Love Hurts, Love Changes Everything or Love Makes You Crazy. It’s not going to be anything you haven’t heard before.” As I said when I reviewed Placebo Effect, cover blurbs are not your friend.
And as I said in that review, knowing bad books (IMHO) get published really isn’t a lot of help. Hopefully next month I’ll find something good.