Describing Literary Fiction

I have always been at a loss in how to describe the type of books I read, known as literary fiction.  It isn't really a genre, like romance, science fiction, western, and fantasy.  I usually resort to telling people that literary fiction does not focus as much on the "action" going on, but more on the emotional aspect.  Most of the titles falling under the term are not easy to describe in a short blurb because of the different layers of meaning within the story.


A friend sent me this blog post which encapsulates everything I would say about what makes literary fiction literary.  I love the discussion on how plot within literary fiction is often buried, to a certain degree, underneath the emotional lives and motivations of the characters.  He uses Gilead by Marilynne Robinson as a perfect example of a literary title that is so difficult to describe in one sentence.  I would put some recent titles like The Six Granddaughters of Cecil Slaughter, The Story of a Marriage, and Alone in the Classroom as good examples, too.  There isn't much "action", per se, but the reader connects with the characters on an emotional level.

In my mind, literary fiction does not have to be the long, wordy, description filled works that many think of when they hear the term.  I would consider Tove Jansson's works, such as Fair Play, to be a work of literary fiction, despite it being a short work.  The same goes for short stories, like works by Alice Munro.

What works do you consider to be literary fiction?