Wealth & Money Quote by George Murray

Murray is puncturing a very particular literary myth: that moving from poetry to fiction is an artistic evolution rather than a market correction. The sting is in his phrasing - “pretend it’s no big deal” paints success not as confidence but as defensive theater, a carefully managed modesty meant to keep one’s “serious” credentials intact. He’s describing a scene where even winning can feel vaguely shameful, because the economy of prestige demands you look untouched by the economy of money.

The subtext is less “fiction is bad” than “we’re lying about why we switch genres.” Poetry, in his framing, carries cultural cachet and poverty as proof of purity; fiction offers broader readership and paychecks, but also the suspicion of selling out. So writers who cross over invent a narrative of “natural progression” - a flattering, linear story that preserves the poet’s self-concept while granting access to a larger marketplace. Murray calls that narrative what it often is: PR, aimed at peers as much as at readers.

Context matters: in Anglophone publishing, poetry is structurally undervalued (small advances, small runs, niche coverage) while fiction is where institutions concentrate attention, prizes, and money. Murray’s complaint is really about the prestige ladder inside literary culture - how it pressures artists to treat ambition as accidental, to disguise practical choices as destiny. The quote works because it refuses the polite euphemisms and names the awkward truth: even artists who “make it” still feel compelled to apologize for wanting the rewards that come with being read.