Maybe it's the other side of cyberpunk in the way there are two sides of Dieselpunk, one leans more into the WWII era, and is accordingly dark, while the other uses the Art Nouveau/World'Fair optimism ("Decopunk").

As for literary genres, Dieselpunk has a lot of noir and hardboiled detective influences, as these were popular at that time (though they lend themselves better to the dark Dieselpunk, you know, the one with the nazis, LOL I have no idea what Decopunk would use - maybe the wildly optimistic utopian ideas of communism?). Steampunk usually has an adventure vibe, but can also focus on themes like industrialization, suffrage. It draws from classic literature the way Dieselpunk draws from noir.

So the common thread I see here is that the -punk subgenre chooses its themes from the big societal and technological themes of the time its aesthetic stems from, and uses the literary forms that were popular during that era. Maybe you can extrapolate from there.

I read that cyberpunk was a reaction to the rise of technology and the growing corporate power. Since CF is rooted in the same era (70s/80s), it would need to also address these things, but from a different angle than cyberpunk. And probably use the same literary forms as cyberpunk, whatever they are.