Ever since I first read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise in high school, I enjoyed pompously telling people that, in addition to my penchant for Russian literature, one of my main areas of interest was the “Lost Generation.” Brittanica describes the Lost Generation as “a group of American writers who came of age during World War I and established their literary reputations in the 1920s.” The term can be applied more broadly, of course, and generally includes any Western writer of note who wrote cynical stuff during the 1920s.
As much as I’m fascinated by the shifts around the Lost Generation and their art, my attention is currently captured by the plethora of writers who are now writing about the Lost Generation. Specifically, the writers who’ve taken to using the allure of the 1920s as a backdrop for all sorts of cozy little murder mysteries and intrigues. While not a participant myself, I gather that the “Regency romance” genre has had a boom in the past decade, most notably with shows like Bridgerton and the ultra-glamorisation of period fashion and beauty. I think it’s fair to say that we’re now witnessing a boom in the “Lost Generation murder mystery” genre.
Any connoisseur of the modern murder mystery knows how fertile the ground has been for pre-World War II and Cold War era murder mysteries, especially in Western Europe with shows like Foyle’s War and books like Agatha Christie’s own Hercule Poirot. It’s the perfect backdrop for spies, political intrigue, and absolutely outrageous motives for murder. But what about the aftermath of World War 1? I’m not trying to claim that it’s a twenty-first century invention—after all, Dorothy Sayers & co. were writing some goofy murder mysteries in real time between the wars—but there’s a Lost Generation murder mystery revival going on, and I want to know why.
The vast landscape of fiction publishing is pure chaos between weird Booktok trends, self-published stuff, and the general insanity of modern tastes (i.e., take what I say—or what anyone else says—with a proverbial fistful of salt). My conjecture is that publishing cycles with genres have become helter-skelter, with seemingly instantaneous over-saturation once someone’s random video has gone viral. But the Lost Generation? Maybe it’s because we’re a century on from the 1920s, or it’s some combination of glittery grimdark and young people wanting to revolt.
Everyone wants to be important and relevant today. Thoughtful posts and overconsumptive reels and poignant tweets (Xs? Exes? The curse of the elongated muskox strikes again!) in lieu of legacies in flesh and bone. Vague gestures of social pseudo-psychology about how Gen-Z is the new Lost Generation because of rampant capitalism, more extremes (whether political, financial, or otherwise), trying to find meaning in the collective despair of geriatric legislators, the bloodied limbless bodies of Palestinian children, the loss of endangered species to climate change and human greed, the inability to afford a bearable life—not even asking for a good one—and so much more. How we miss the good old days of Trogdor the Burninator and the distant idea of something going on in Afghanistan as we rifled through the newspaper to look for the daily comics.
Cozy murder mysteries in the Lost Generation provide a sense of escape. A life far away enough to not be our own but close enough to be relatable. We wonder at a time not so long ago, where middle class families had butlers and maids and fleets of automobiles with some semblance of order to the world. But we also know the unhappy ending; that the “Great War” would have a bigger and nastier younger sibling that would extinguish whatever bright young things flamed. The inevitably of knowing the last shreds of hope were too delicate to survive. That same inevitability we feel now.
Maybe in another century from now, whoever’s left will want to write cozy murder mysteries about the 2020s and marvel at the hope we fought to have in the midst of terrible things.
