i recently read Don't Want You Like a Best Friend and I think it could be categorized as a wallpaper romance, which I'd never heard of before this essay. It's queer, which is not the real "wallpaper" aspect, but while reading I felt like the behaviors and opinions of the characters were soooo 2024. I enjoyed the book, but it really felt like it was only historical because that's a popular trend right now. This book could easily have taken place in any other time period if the author just switched a few settings.
I do think consequences of discovery of queer relationships could be an aspect of wallpaper. And also framing of sexuality, what words people are using to describe themselves. Like Think of England, for example, is the queer historical I have read that involves the most fear of discovery because of potential criminal consequences. But it is also set much later than a lot of what I read and criminal consequences were a higher risk in the Edwardian period than the Regency. There is no way to blackmail someone with a photo in the Regency!
I don't think wallpaper is inherently bad, but particularly for queer relationships, I think the effect of most queer romances being wallpaper-y adds to the idea that the only way queer people can exist and be happy is in a fantasy past, not an actual past. Which is just ahistorical! It also assumes this current moment in time is better than the past on this issue, so the contemporary framing solves the problem. But certainly there were historical times and places aspects of queer life were less fraught than certain areas and communities in the United States right now!
I’m glad you alluded to the Tiffany problem - maybe we should call it the Wollstonecraft or Lamb problem when it comes to social mores?
There’s also the wallpaper issue when people write books set in the present day but in a place they don’t live - I think most British readers have experienced reading a book purportedly set in the UK but which just doesn’t FEEL right, and it turns out to have been written by a North American author. This stuff is tricky, and as you say, if I enjoy the story, I’m willing to forgive a lot.
I went to an event with author Lex Croucher last year and they described their books as ‘fantasy historical’, I.e. a fantasy of history. I liked that!
I had a whole section on names that I had to cut! The number of Sebastians running around Regency England was much lower than romance would have you believe, but nobody questions a Sebastian. But Jane Austen had an aunt named Philadelphia!
I also like your point that contemporaries can feel like "wallpaper-y" too. I don't really read too many contemporaries, so I wanted my definition not be set in those terms, but I was thinking about a few contemporary novels that, to me, *feel* like historicals (Sunshine and Shadow by Tom and Sharon Curtis and Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips). Part of that is definitely the plots of each of those (interfaith/interclass relationship and arranged marriage, respectively), but both of those novels feel really grounded in their settings. Maybe it isn't that wallpaper is a historical that feels like a contemporary, but that a lot of contemporary romances are wallpaper themselves!
Lots to think about here! Wallpapering is a good term because it is not always bad to have wallpaper in the room, but if the room is only decorated with wallpaper and nothing else, then the room will feel empty. I think historical settings work best when the story engages with the era in some way or another, and so wallpaper stories feel empty to me when they are only mimicking world-building done by other books in the genre and don't leverage the setting themselves for plot, commentary, or other narrative purposes.
One reason I wanted to write this is that I do think it is a good term! And one that is useful when described neutrally. Wallpaper is not a synonym with a worse book for me, even though my taste skews the other way.
i recently read Don't Want You Like a Best Friend and I think it could be categorized as a wallpaper romance, which I'd never heard of before this essay. It's queer, which is not the real "wallpaper" aspect, but while reading I felt like the behaviors and opinions of the characters were soooo 2024. I enjoyed the book, but it really felt like it was only historical because that's a popular trend right now. This book could easily have taken place in any other time period if the author just switched a few settings.
I do think consequences of discovery of queer relationships could be an aspect of wallpaper. And also framing of sexuality, what words people are using to describe themselves. Like Think of England, for example, is the queer historical I have read that involves the most fear of discovery because of potential criminal consequences. But it is also set much later than a lot of what I read and criminal consequences were a higher risk in the Edwardian period than the Regency. There is no way to blackmail someone with a photo in the Regency!
I don't think wallpaper is inherently bad, but particularly for queer relationships, I think the effect of most queer romances being wallpaper-y adds to the idea that the only way queer people can exist and be happy is in a fantasy past, not an actual past. Which is just ahistorical! It also assumes this current moment in time is better than the past on this issue, so the contemporary framing solves the problem. But certainly there were historical times and places aspects of queer life were less fraught than certain areas and communities in the United States right now!
I’m glad you alluded to the Tiffany problem - maybe we should call it the Wollstonecraft or Lamb problem when it comes to social mores?
There’s also the wallpaper issue when people write books set in the present day but in a place they don’t live - I think most British readers have experienced reading a book purportedly set in the UK but which just doesn’t FEEL right, and it turns out to have been written by a North American author. This stuff is tricky, and as you say, if I enjoy the story, I’m willing to forgive a lot.
I went to an event with author Lex Croucher last year and they described their books as ‘fantasy historical’, I.e. a fantasy of history. I liked that!
I had a whole section on names that I had to cut! The number of Sebastians running around Regency England was much lower than romance would have you believe, but nobody questions a Sebastian. But Jane Austen had an aunt named Philadelphia!
I also like your point that contemporaries can feel like "wallpaper-y" too. I don't really read too many contemporaries, so I wanted my definition not be set in those terms, but I was thinking about a few contemporary novels that, to me, *feel* like historicals (Sunshine and Shadow by Tom and Sharon Curtis and Kiss an Angel by Susan Elizabeth Phillips). Part of that is definitely the plots of each of those (interfaith/interclass relationship and arranged marriage, respectively), but both of those novels feel really grounded in their settings. Maybe it isn't that wallpaper is a historical that feels like a contemporary, but that a lot of contemporary romances are wallpaper themselves!
Lots to think about here! Wallpapering is a good term because it is not always bad to have wallpaper in the room, but if the room is only decorated with wallpaper and nothing else, then the room will feel empty. I think historical settings work best when the story engages with the era in some way or another, and so wallpaper stories feel empty to me when they are only mimicking world-building done by other books in the genre and don't leverage the setting themselves for plot, commentary, or other narrative purposes.
One reason I wanted to write this is that I do think it is a good term! And one that is useful when described neutrally. Wallpaper is not a synonym with a worse book for me, even though my taste skews the other way.
Great analysis. I can't define wallpaper, but I know it when I read it.
Thank you! I felt the same way, which spurred me to try and write a definition!