Randy Susan Meyers's Blog, page 44
September 29, 2011
Nobody Kills For Love
[image error]Every now and then an article leaps out of the paper and punches me in the chest. (Actually, this should probably happen with 90% of the articles printed. Sometimes I don't know why all of us morning-paper-readers don't end up weeping, railing or marching after closing the last page.)
This morning's Boston Globe headlined an article about a domestic violence murder with these words: DA says suspect killed for love.
The words, "His lawyer Jack Atwood said manslaughter would be a more appropriate charge," appeared under a photo of the killer in his hospital bed.
"Love," the word, the concept, is written three times in the article: as explanation for this murder; as background information; as the murderer's feelings toward the victim; as his purported reason for killing this twenty-four year-old woman, seventeen years his junior. Descriptions of the victim, courtesy of the murderer's roommate, describe her as lying, as complaining of being neglected, as being upset that the murderer didn't pay her sufficient attention.
What possible relation does this have to the murder? The defendant's lawyer calls it a "betrayal and jealousy case." The Globe reports the lawyer's beliefs that manslaughter is the correct charge, "citing his client's drinking on Sunday and his anger over the rodeo incident."
The victim's family is quoted once, saying that the man and woman were in "an abusive relationship." Almost five full paragraphs are allotted to the murderer's roommate, an apparent expert on domestic violence, describing the broken-hearted killer who cried and wanted the victim back.
How many times do we read these first reports of a domestic homicide, where the victim's profile is wrapped in the perpetrator's belief of his victim cheating, leaving him bereft, breaking his heart?
Where to start?
An article about a boy killing his parents contains no sins of the mother and father, real or imagined. A report of a mother having killed her son cites, appropriately, not a negative word about the child. An article about a homicide of a sixteen-year-old and wounding of a fourteen-year-old mentions, appropriately, the need for safety for youth. It did not list their faults.
What is it about men killing women that invites speculation of the women's worth? Their blame? Their role in their own murders? I fear it is a way our culture inculcates the drink offered by batterers; after working with these men for ten years, I've heard their excuses too many times to hear their words as newsworthy:
She ignored me. She spent my money. She's a bad mother, an awful daughter, an evil girlfriend. She cheated, she lied, she stole. Abusers piled up their partners transgressions, hoping they'd finally reach the one that would make me say: "Oh, now I understand. You're right. It's her fault. It's okay to hit, slap, punch, beat, kill her. . "
Men who abuse, men who kill, men who are violent in their homes—they are in love with themselves, with their power, and with their sense of their own loss in this world. Abusers are obsessed with themselves and their own victimhood.
They do not kill for love. They kill for hate.
And in the end, dead is dead. Friends mourn. Children are orphaned. Mothers and fathers are shattered.
Help is available 24 hours a day.
The victims of abuse are our friends, our family, our sisters and brothers. It could be a parent who is a victim of elder abuse; a neighborhood child being beaten. It could be our niece with the black eye.
Don't believe someone when they tell you it's about love. It never is.
National Coalition Against Domestic Violence
September 26, 2011
DRINKING, A LOVE STORY The book I love (again) this week
[image error]"It happened this way: I fell in love and then, because the love was ruining everything I cared about, I had to fall out.
This didn't happen easily, or simply, but if I had to pinpoint it, I'd say the relationship started to fall apart the night I nearly killed my oldest friend's two daughters."
Thus begins the prologue of Caroline Knapp's 1997 best-selling memoir, Drinking: A Love Story.
Why are we—why am I—so fascinated by stories of drug and alcohol abuse? There but for the grace of God go I? Because, lacking luck or God's grace, there went too many in my family? I could easily write a top ten list for my favorite drinking books or drug movies.
There are good reasons why I turn to this genre, why I tended bar for many years, and why in those groups I led for violent men, I had a secret sadness for those broken by cocaine, Jim Beam, and crack. My father succumbed to the life soon after turning 35. I grew up at a time when it was all there for the asking. At seventeen, I walked down the street and a young man said, "Yes or no?"
"Yes," I said. He smiled, popped something in his mouth, and went on his way.
America has a love-hate relationship with drinking and no one outlined this teeter-totter better than Caroline Knapp (who, sadly, died of lung cancer in 2002) a successful journalist and columnist, a magna cum laude Ivy Leaguer, a daughter of upper-class Cambridge Massachusetts, who drank herself into oblivion.
With honesty and writing so good it disappears before your eyes, Knapp takes us deep into her secretly out-of-control world.
"Between the day I knew I had to stop drinking and the day I finally did, I cried almost all night."
I am lucky enough not to have struggled with an addiction to drugs or alcohol—though I think I only skated away from it through a combination of luck and having a weak stomach—but I struggled with cigarettes in this way. I loved smoking. Stopping terrified me. Reading Caroline Knapp's book helped me stay away.
This is the thing about memoirs. Despite the mocking that goes on about over-sharing, I believe that those brave enough—like Knapp—to share, offer us a wonderful gift. By reading them, we can get a me too, and have hope. We can gasp in gratitude at our luck at our own lives, and perhaps have more empathy for those who fell over grace's line, or perhaps we can grasp these stories as a helpful hand offered.
Growing up in a family where secrets reigned, without books I'd have had no clue that the entire world wasn't made up of Cleaver, Cosby, and Brady families. Every day I silently offer gratitude to authors for writing out their lives. Today I send a message to Caroline Knapp. Thank you, Caroline, for your brave book.
September 9, 2011
Reading Without Borders
[image error]About when I turned ten I began crafting my library checkouts, hoping I'd look smart. I'd balance my Nancy Drew with a biography of Abraham Lincoln, so the librarian thought well of me. (It seems my self-esteem problem enacted early.) Today, reading Why Are So Many Literary Writers Shifting into Genre?, on The Millions, I felt that familiar shiver of what will the librarian think of me?
Commercial? Literary? Genre? Are genre books written by literary writers more acceptable than those written by genre writers, similar to men writing of domestic life being considered braver than women doing the same?
I'm revisiting material here that I wrote about last year—because the issue never dies, it only sheds skin and rebirths. In Sept 2010, Jodi Picoult and Jennifer Weiner stood up against the New York Times doubled coverage of Jonathan Franzen's Freedom. Picoult weighed in at the Guardian on mainstream newspapers overwhelming coverage of white male authors. It doesn't change: men telling domestic stories are writing art; women covering similar ground are crafting women's fiction. Jennifer Weiner agreed and twitterized the issue.
Weiner's directness started a new frenzy and the issue veered from Picoult's premise (overwhelming review coverage of men vs. women and white authors vs. nonwhite authors) to literary fiction being weighed against commercial fiction, often with writers bloodying their own. Weiner and Picoult got trashed for daring to stand up for equality of coverage.
Many writers and reviewers denied the claim that newspapers ignore women and non-white writers and unfairly categorize mainstream novels (a topic well examined by Roxanne Mt Joy and Michelle Dean) asserting that they're simply reviewing superior fiction, which quickly becomes a construct of healthy peas and carrots books versus sinful bad-for-you ice cream reads.
Michelle Dean wrote far better than I could on the danger of, as eloquently put by Nigerian writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's, "The Danger of A Single Story," noting, "the silencing and devaluing of those voices has consequences, particularly when it tends to happen disproportionately to certain populations.
Some argue that commercial books find their audience without help, only literature needs reviewing—but how does that answer the male/white tipping of review scales? It seems a specious and power-retaining argument. Independent films survive even as movie reviewers include commercial films in their wheelhouse.
In a time when black writers are shunted to an African-American section, when men are deemed artists and women crafters, when science fiction and thrillers are better covered than woman-identified historical fiction, and romance is relegated to the deepest closet of shame reads, then the commercial-lit divide becomes nastily entwined within a gender and racial writing divide. Coloring this is the character versus plot battle, well described by author Chris Abouzied in his post, "The Decomposition of Language."
In Kim Wright's Million's article, she worries: "Still, it's hard to think of very many writers – save possibly Stephen King – who have moved from genre to literary. The floor seems to slope the other way, and Patriarche concedes that sometimes the difference isn't so much in what the author has written as in how the publisher opts to describe it. "I've seen literary books blurbed as something like 'the thinking woman's beach read,'" she says. "And that's a sign that the publisher is trying to appeal to consumers who are more mainstream. In this aspect the change is more industry-driven than author-driven.""
Please, let's pray we don't start having a stratification of literary genre vs. non literary genre.
Since I started reading at age four I've never been without books and I pray to have a TBR stack until the moment I die. On that heap I want it all: pounding plots, the wow of discovery, the comfort of recognition, and astounding characters. If I'm lucky, some will have all of the above. Whichever one I'm holding, I don't want to be judged or lauded for it and I don't want to shelve my books by race, class, or gender.
Tayari Jones, writing to fellow authors about the stratification of literature, said it very well: 'other writers do not deserve your scorn.' In the spirit of writer/reader heal thyself; I'm going to work on remembering those words. There's room for all in the big tent of reading.
September 6, 2011
In Her Wake: When Our Parents Define Us
"The day my mother killed herself, she had just finished preparing her house on Marlborough Street for the anticipated return of her children after a fierce custody battle with my father. There were six of us and much to do."
I tend to read very fast, often too fast. While reading In Her Wake I forced myself to slow way down, because I didn't want to miss a sentence, or let a single thought go unread or undigested. Nancy Rappaport's gripping story is entwined with a depth of easily understood research, so much so that as I followed in Rappaport's wake, as she uncovered her family secrets, so to did I begin to understand some of my own.
Who doesn't continue to examine their past through out their life? When my mother was in her late seventies, she asked me to find information about her lost father still seeking reasons why he'd chosen to have two families. My mother went to her last days puzzling on her father's bigamy.
Nancy Rappaport didn't wait this long. Her mother committed suicide when Nancy was barely four. Many years later — the author now herself a mother — sets out to discover why her mother left her in this manner. She takes us on her discovery in such an up close way, we feel as though we're walking beside her, also anxious for clues, for truth, for some morsel of closure.
This is an achingly honest read — the only times the author flinches at revealing facts and feelings is when she tells us that she's flinching. So embracing is her writing, that we understand and sympathize. Her father, her stepmothers, her eleven brothers and sisters (siblings connected through a variety of parents) are reading over her shoulder and are often unhappy about the family ground being turned over.
Silence has weighed down Nancy Rappaport's family since before her mother's death. Family silence can wrap each member tight enough to choke out life and love — but Rappaport finds and shows the tender love she feels towards her father, even as she examines his role in her mother's decline as she devolved from a woman spinning in circles of achievement to a mother finding her final answer in a handful of pills.
Rappaport is a grieving daughter searching for the comfort of reason. She is also a child psychiatrist, schooled in investigation, comfortable in teaching, and excellent at synthesizing research. In Her Wake is a book for any who've had divorce, death, infidelity, and neglect touch their lives. I thought of my sister and I sneaking into my mother's purse and remembered being nabbed for shoplifting on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn (after my father's death,) when I read this passage:
When I think about my 'sticky fingers,' the observation of revered British psychoanalyst D.W. Winnicott–that when an adolescent steals, she is looking for something that she has a right to, that she is making a claim on her mother and father because she feels deprived of their love–seems a plausible explanation for my impulse to steal . . . I stole rock candy and Sugar Babies on the way home. I stole pencils and colored flair pens. I did Christmas shopping at the Harvard Square Co-op–coming out with a well-packed duffle bag of records, paperbacks, a scarf and socks, all unpaid for.
When I was seventeen I walked out from Macy's in San Francisco carrying a stolen small sewing machine on which I never sewed a thing.
In a testament to Rappaport's skill with words, she weaves into her family history, not only pertinent and fascinating psychological and sociological information, but also a mini-history of a slice of Boston's history, including her family's discomforting connection to the loss of the West End (an entire neighborhood in Boston) and shines a light into the inner-working of Boston politics through the connections of her mother and father to that world.
The mark, for me, of a truly wonderful book, is that it that holds up bits of mirror where one's own secret tears and thoughts are reflected. With this, one feels less alone. In Her Wake was this book for me. Despite the lack of factual similarity, the amount of emotional resonance, coupled with eye-opening information on divorce, infidelity, suicide, and more broke down the walls between the book and my life and I sank inside.
A parent's problems, if they rent too much space in a child's mind, can crowd out everything else. Nancy Rappaport's journey to uncover her mother's sadness seemed designed to help the author finally claim her own soul, even as she mourns her mother. As she does, she teaches the reader and allows them pages and hours that can engender their own self-reflection.
Faced with the horror of a colleague's suicide, Rappaport reports, "My therapist told me that when someone kills herself it is as if she puts her skeleton in her closet. I did not want this skeleton and I resented the intrusion."
Passages like this allow those clicks of recognition that make In Her Wakea universal read while telling an intense and personal family story, which reads at times like a mystery.
This is a book generous and comforting because of the truth. It is a book that clarifies one's own thoughts on the meaning of past and family. It is deeply moving.
August 29, 2011
Book Recommendations from Kris
[image error]When I'm lucky, I get an email from my friend Kris Alden, the smartest, fastest, and most intensely loving reader of book I know. This week I got lucky and how better to celebrate, than by sharing her thoughts:
Dear Randy,
Books, books, books—I have hit the mother load of excellent new books this past week—need to share them with you to add to your ever growing tower of must reads.
The Borrower, by Rebecca Makkai: A librarian takes off on an unauthorized road trip with her 10 year old precocious patron to rescue him from his Evangelist parents who are trying to "de GAY" him. It gets a little improbable a few times, but all in all I really enjoyed it. My favorite part is the way she sorts her personal books: she puts them in groups based on how well the various characters would get along at a cocktail party. I love that!
Dry Grass of August by Anna Jean Mayhew: Ahhh . . . this book tore my heart out. A little like the "Help" in that it's about Black maids—it's much more raw and, to my mind, more real. Not to spoil it for you, but something horrific happens about half way through the story and for some reason it just grabbed a hold of me. I couldn't stop thinking about it and was angry that the other characters really never addressed the incredibly brave and unselfish act that took place. Obviously it still is affecting me. Also this is the author's first book at age 71!
The Inverted Forest by John Dalton. Sad strong writing about one summer at Kindemann Camp and how it changed staff and councilors lives forever. It takes place in the first 2 weeks of camp when the usual wealthy white kids are replaced with a group of mentally and physically disabled patients from a state hospital. I was up till 3 AM reading this. I really loved it and loved and despised many of the characters.
Okay, girl, those are my suggestions for books that will keep you up at night reading -and then digesting them."
Love, K
Kris Alden is a collage artist, quilter, chef and a totally besotted grandmother. In 2008, after 17 years she shut the doors of her Boston catering business, packed her bags, her cats and her books and moved to Brattleboro, Vermont – where she immediately fell in love with the town and the people.
Kris has had a lifelong love affair with the written word and one of her fears is that the world will run out of books before she is done reading. When she isn't creating collages, reading or thinking about reading, she runs a personal chef service, "Someone's in the Kitchen." She adores being a grandma, her kids, her friends, her cats, her art and oh, yeah…her books. She can be reached at Potluck3@gmail.com
August 21, 2011
What Makes You Buy A Book?
[image error]What makes you buy a book? Is it different from what makes you watch a movie? Pick a television show? It seems so, because it's so private—just you and the bookseller or librarian…or, these days, as likely, your computer. Do you try it on like a dress (like reading the first few pages,) or do you just grab it because is looks so pretty on the hanger (like buying a book because the cover looks so splendid?)
Or is it all about the ads? Facebook? NYT? Reviews?
I did an (very) informal survey on Facebook, Twitter, and reaching out to my co-bloggers on Beyond The Margins. So, this represents only 54 people, over half writers, and all with an online presence . . . but, these are hardcore readers. And as for the statistics, they don't add up to 100, because only a few readers named a single methodology. I didn't give 'choices' but asked the open-ended question, "how do you choose a book?"
As suspected, highest rated, at 57%, were friend's recommendations and word-of-mouth, unless of course, it's a book for free: "Word of mouth and then reviews (more for description than opinion) as far as purchasing. At the library, where my money is not at stake, I will grab a book for almost any reason. Just because it wants to come home with me."
Next in line, reviews were the most important, coming in at 40%. Not all differentiated between print or online, but there did seem to be a lean towards traditional media, and most were hand-in-hand with other methods of finding books: "Reviews, yes but also recommendations from friends who share similar reading tastes."
Browsing, next at 32%, is still popular, so open up more of those independent bookstores, please. And make sure your book looks good: "When out browsing, I admit that cover and title tend to draw me to pick up a book."
Speaking of looking good, a surprising (to me) number of folks judged by a book's cover,26%, fourth down. "Hate to admit how much the cover means whether or not I will even pick up a book." "Word of mouth is big for me, as is a great cover."
Some, however, seemed ashamed by their weakness for covers: "I definitely judge books by the covers, which is probably limiting because I'm sometimes snobbishly resistant to books that look too commercial and overly swayed by compelling cover art. (Similarly, I shouldn't always buy wine based on attractive labels.)"
It seems breaking through makes a difference, as fifth in line at 23% was familiarity with an author. "If it's a book by an author I love, I'll snatch it right up."
Next, is one of my (many) favorites, reading the first page/s, holding sway with 21% of respondents. "Definitely the first few pages, looking for voice."
Reading a first chapter or excerpt online, particularly samples from eBook sellers, is paramount to many at 15%: "I download the first chapter to my Kindle app before I buy ANYTHING. And this is why first chapters are so important!" "Excerpt, all the way."
The under sung synopsis and book jacket copy are pretty important (they are to me) at15% followed closely by book and lit bloggers, at 13% mean the most to some.
Subject matter was paramount for 17%, as perfectly said by a woman who could have been reading my mind: "Subject matter is what draws me. The wounded, the survivors, oddballs and outsiders, put them together in a dark, tough, gritty story, and I'm sold."
Twitter buzz and twitter friends clocked in at 11%, slightly outpacing NPR andAmazon Recommendations at 9%. Librarians, booksellers, and Facebookrecommendations sang to 8% of respondents.
Amazon and Goodreads Reviews (weighted to Amazon) also drew in 8%, one of them quite emphatically: "Upon reflection, I'm a lemming. I can't think of the last time I bought a book (save for research) that hadn't been exalted by a hundred reviewers on Amazon or Goodreads—those work on me the way AS SEEN ON TV sold my parents."
Tied for 5% were opening sentences and titles, which, if true, contrasts with the inordinate amount of time spent on those two.
Recommendations from writers brought 4% of a vote, as did Facebook ads, and an awareness of a promotional push.
Tied for last place, at 2% was Amazon browsing, displays, bestseller lists, hype, blurbs, book trailers & Target picks.
So, what does this mean to writers, as we're urged to buy ads, get a huge presence on Facebook, Goodreads, Twitter, Google +, Tumbler, and the places I don't even know about? My own self talk is this: write the best book I can, continue to value and respect traditional media and reviews (my own first source of recommendations,) participate in social media in ways that tap my passion, and write about books I love.
After that, I cross my fingers.
August 16, 2011
Why Book Review Equality Matters
The first time I looked for a job, Help Wanted was divided into three sections: Men, Women, and General. If memory serves me (I doubt it) men's jobs were the professional ones, women's were the handmaiden ones, and general included dishwashers and drivers.
Trust me, the career paths were separate and not equal.
I remembered those categories while writing this post (which I wish I wasn't writing) when I came across the terms microinequity and micro-affirmation, first coined by Mary Rowe, who defined micro-inequities as "apparently small events which are often ephemeral and hard-to-prove, events which are covert, often unintentional, frequently unrecognized by the perpetrator, which occur wherever people are perceived to be 'different.'"
A micro-affirmation, in Rowe's writing, is the reverse phenomenon. "Micro-affirmations are subtle or apparently small acknowledgements of a person's value and accomplishments. They may take the shape of public recognition of the person, "opening a door," referring positively to the work of a person, commending someone on the spot, or making a happy introduction. Apparently "small" affirmations form the basis of successful mentoring, successful colleagueships and of most caring relationships. They may lead to greater self-esteem and improved performance."
On the front page of today's Boston Sunday Globe is an article entitled: "About-face at Harvard: A push is on to make the portraits on the walls— white men, almost all — reflect the diverse face of the university today."
In this article, Tracy Jan reports: "There's a significance to portraiture, in demonstrating to people of all backgrounds that their presence and contribution are appreciated,'' said Dr. S. Allen Counter, director of The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations, which for eight years has been quietly commissioning portraits of distinguished minorities and women to hang in Harvard's hallowed halls.
"We simply wish to place portraits of persons of color and others who've served Harvard among the panoply of portraits that already exists,'' Counter said. "We will not displace any portrait, just simply add to them.''
A micro-affirmation of great proportions.
Also in today's Sunday Boston Globe are four full reviews of books by men, no full reviews of books by women. ("Short Takes," a column of brief reviews covered two books by women and one by a man.) Monday through Saturday, during the past three weeks, there were 17 reviews of books by men and one review of a book by a woman.
Microinequality.
Last weekend, when I briefly touched on this on my Facebook page, a friend asked "but how many books by men vs. women are published?" I'd love to know and spent too many should-be-writing hours looking, but I wonder if the question and answer would beget a chicken-egg quandary. In addition, there is the question of equality in marketing, book covers, etc—a topic well covered by Lionel Shriver (winner of the 2005 Orange Prize and a finalist for the 2010 National Book Awards).
To repeat: I didn't want to write this post. I'm frightened of writing this post (but impulse and passion control has never been my strongest suit). I've had very fair shakes from newspapers and radio—great reviews and mentions in The Boston Globe, The NYT, and NPR (referenced below). They are my main and beloved news sources. I've subscribed to both for enough years to have bought a shiny new car.
The last thing in the world I want is to bite the hand . . . but I have two daughters and a tiny granddaughter.
When women write about this phenomenon, they can usually count on the eye-rolling responses, the sigh that says "isn't this topic getting tedious" and wild assertions that women run publishing. Disparaging responses such as, "Unfortunately, what gets lost in this smokescreen is the more important (and dangerously tricky) question of "Why isn't there more serious literary fiction being published by women?"" by bloggers such as The Grumbler who assert that women don't deserve reviews in serious media.
Thankfully, I also find great hope. The Economist took a sharp look at this question, noting how reviews written will translate to books read, writing, "All readers are gently trained to empathise with white male narrators."
In private, most female writers talk about mainstream media (and often non-mainstream media) review numbers, but we're terrified to go public, easily imagining the scenario that could result:
"Oh, so you want a review, do you?" asks Important Editor after hearing about your . . . whining. "Fine. Here's your review. Read it and weep."
Do I truly think an editor would be that crass? No, but there is that ingrained awful fear about not being a good girl. About being called a whiner, a baby, and a jealous harpy. When Jennifer Weiner and Jodie Picoult talked about this they were accused of ugly motives as well as having their talent denigrated, and they're best-selling authors. Thus, why would any woman want to go there? Why do I?
Would it help if men joined in this?
Does it matter? Does it matter that in 2009, Publishers Weekly didn't include a single woman in their list of the Top 10 Books of 2009?
Carolyn Kellog writing in the LA Times on Dick Meyer's NPR list of 100 Best Books of the Twentieth Century (a list that included only 7 books written by women) quotes Meyer as saying "My taste is probably medium-brow, male and parochial in many ways. Tough. It's my list." In response, Kellog asks, "but it begs the question: can one imagine a female writing for NPR having a nearly all female Best Books List?"
Does this matter? According to NPR, "As NPR's executive editor, Dick Meyer shapes and oversees NPR's worldwide news operation on-air and online. Meyer plays a critical role in integrating NPR's on-air sound with its dynamic and growing online and mobile platforms, and in fostering the organization's distinctive storytelling and enterprise reporting."
That sounds to me as though his opinion very much matters.
The number of book reviews of women is indicative of a micro inequality, which piles up to matter quite a bit. Julianna Baggot captured it well, writing in the Washington Post, "So how do we strip away our prejudice? First, we have to see prejudice. The top prizes' discrimination against women has been largely ignored. We can't ignore it any longer."
Some not only ignore it, they deny it. Writing about this issue, Slate.com wrote: "The bookish blogosphere continues to debate whether the New York Times—and, by extension, other cultural gatekeepers—really does give white male fiction writers preferential coverage over authors of the distaff and ethnic variety . . . So we decided to gather some statistics in order to determine whether the Times' book pages really are a boys' club."
You can download the actual spreadsheet at Slate, but their conclusions boiled down to this: Of the 545 books reviewed in the NYT between June 29, 2008 and Aug. 27, 2010:
—338 were written by men (62 percent of the total)
—207 were written by women (38 percent of the total)
Of the 101 books that received two reviews in that period:
—72 were written by men (71 percent)
—29 were written by women (29 percent)
In 2002, the Complete Review of Books admirably took themselves to task for their miserable coverage of books written by women authors at 12.61%.
During that same period, they examined the track record of major literary papers of record:
Reviews of Books by Women
Publication
Total
Percent
London Review of Books
40
15.00
The NY Review of Books
76
18.42
The NY Times Book Review
120
30.00
Times Literary Supplement
130
24.60
.
.
.
TOTAL
366
24.04
If women's books aren't reviewed, when women's books are declared "less literary, and when women's books on family are declared women's fiction, while men's domestic books are declared brave and eye-opening, it adds many pounds to the micro-inequality pile.
Do we care enough to fight about this?
I think it comes down to this: people in power rarely give up power voluntarily; sometimes they don't even recognize that they have the power. I think it's up to us to join the brave authors like Julianna Baggot, Jennifer Weiner, Jodi Picoult, and Lionel Shriver, who are willing to talk about this. We need to tell ourselves and ask the men who are our friends, who are the fathers of daughters and father of sons who will marry daughters, that it's time.
It's time to rid ourselves of micro-indignity, and remember that men and women each hold up half the the sky.
August 5, 2011
Homemade MFA
"How did you get published? Do you have an MFA?" a reader asked last week. I struggled for the right answer—how to tell her that, no, I don't have an MFA, but still, I credit being published on other people's teaching.
A number of years ago (about ten to be inexact) I faced reality. If I were to be taken seriously by publishers and agents, I had to work with more intent. For a number of reasons (money, reluctance, working 50+ hours a week, and hyper-impatience with lectures) I didn't return to school. Instead, I dove into self-study and set myself up as a virtual Miss Grundy.
On my bookshelves are over 90 books on writing (not counting those borrowed or given away.) Adding those would bring the number up by 35 or more. I read all, highlighted most, and drove the facts into my brain by writing papers (for myself) on them.
This week, as I began the process of outlining my third novel (having just given over number two to the temporary care and custody of my agent and new editor) I thumbed over a few of my favorites and realized, with gratitude, how much these authors gave me. A private MFA (minus the personal critique—for that I thank Grub Street's Master Novel Workshop, led by the incredible Jenna Blum.)
I cannot be more grateful. Thank you all, generous writers of craft and more.
On Revision: "Cut it by 10 percent. Cut everything by 10 percent . . . Cut phoniness. There are going to be certain passages that you put in simply in the hope of impressing people. It is true of me, and it almost surely true of you. I have maybe never known a writer of whom it is not true. But literary pretension is the curse of the postmodern age. We all have our favorite ways of showing off and they rarely serve us well. When you have identified your own grandiosity, do not be kind." The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, by Stephen Koch
"The only way to improve our ability to see structure is to look harder at it, in our own work and in others'. When you read a book you love, force your mind to see its contours. Concentrate on structure without flinching until it reveals itself. Text is a plastic art, not just a verbal one: it has a shape. To train your mind to see shapes more easily, write them (and sketch them if you like) in a notebook. As with writing down dreams, the more you write, the more you will see." The Artful Edit: On the practice of editing yourself, by Susan Bell
On Craft:
"Significant detail, the active voice, and prose rhythm are techniques for achieving the sensuous in fiction, means of helping the reader "sink into the dream" of the story, in John Gardner's phrase. Yet no technique is of much use if the reader's eye is wrenched back to the surface by misspellings or grammatical errors, for once the reader has been startled out of the story's "vivid and continuous dream," the reader may not return." Writing Fiction, by Janet Burroway
"What is the throughline? Throughline is a term borrowed from films. It means the main plotline of your story, the one that answers the question, 'what happened to the protagonist?' Many, many things may happen to her—as well as to everybody else in the book—but the primary events of the most significant action is the thoroughline. It's what keeps your reader reading." Beginnings, Middles and Ends, by Nancy Kress
"Imagine you're at a play. It's the middle of the first act: you're really getting involved in the drama they're acting out. Suddenly the playwright runs out on the stage and yells, 'Do you see what's happening here? Do you see how her coldness is behind his infidelity? Have you noticed the way his womanizing has undermined her confidence? Do you get it?' . . . This is exactly what happens when you explain your dialogue to your readers. Self –Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne & Dave King.
" . . . the quickest and easiest way to reject a manuscript is to look for the overuse, or misuse, of adjectives and adverbs. The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman
"Because fiction requires a mighty engine to thrust it ahead—and take the reader along for the ride—backstory if used incorrectly, can stall a story. A novel with too little backstory can be thin and is likely to be confusing. By the same token, a novel with too much backstory can lack suspense . . .. Remember this: The fantasy world of your story will loom larger in your imagination than it will on the page . . ..
Balance is the notion that every element in the story exists in its proper proportion . . . When you lavish a person, place, or object with descriptive details, readers expect them to have a corresponding importance. Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writing, by Jessica Page Morrell
On Sustaining: " 'You have to remind yourself that it's very hard work. If you drift along thinking you've got some sort of gift, you get yourself into some real trouble.' Arthur Golden
'I try to remember that a review is one person's opinion—and a cranky person's at that.' " Elinor Lipman
'The only reason writers survive rejection is because they love writing so much that they can't bear the idea of giving it up' M.J. Rose. The Resilient Writer, edited byCatherine Wald
"Over the years, I have calculated that feedback on any given piece of writing always falls into one of three categories, and breaks down into the following percentages: 14 percent of feedback is dead-on; 18 percent is from another planet; and 68 percent falls somewhere in-between." Toxic Feedback, by Joni B. Cole
On Tension: "Inner censors interfere with effective revision in a number of ways. For instance, most fiction writers act like protective parents towards their characters, especially the hero and his or her friends. Writers are too nice. You not only don't have to treat your characters nicely, in revision you should look for ways to make the obstacles bigger, the complications seemingly endless, and their suffering worse. Avoid the temptation to rescue your characters." Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, by Elizabeth Lyon
On Sex: "Sex is not an ATM withdrawal. Narrate from inside your characters' bodies and minds, not from a camera set up to record the transaction." The Joy of Writing Sex, byElizabeth Benedict.
On Public Reading: "Few writers are truly gifted at giving readings, and most have panic attacks before doing an interview, whether for radio, print, or television. And nowadays an author who isn't deemed 'promotable' can be a liability . . . It's important to plan your readings and selections before you speak in public. Long descriptive passage usually put people to sleep, as does staring down at your book for twenty minutes and reading either too fast or in a monotone . . . provide some meaningful stories. If an audience has come out to see you, give them something they won't find in the book." The Forest for the Trees, by Betsy Lerner
On Humilitation: "The lowest moment in my literary career was when I found myself bidding for a middle-aged oil magnate in a mock slave auction at a dinner in Dallas. I was bidding for the sake of Bloomsbury and for the honor of England, but I think the compounds the shame." Margret Drabble, Mortification: Writer's Stories of their Public Shame, edited by Robin Robertson
On Environment: "In truth, I've found that any day's routine interruptions and distractions don't much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways. It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters." On Writing, by Stephen King
A Homemade MFA
"How did you get published? Do you have an MFA?" a reader asked last week. I struggled for the right answer—how to tell her that, no, I don't have an MFA, but still, I credit being published on other people's teaching.
A number of years ago (about ten to be inexact) I faced reality. If I were to be taken seriously by publishers and agents, I had to work with more intent. For a number of reasons (money, reluctance, working 50+ hours a week, and hyper-impatience with lectures) I didn't return to school. Instead, I dove into self-study and set myself up as a virtual Miss Grundy.
On my bookshelves are over 90 books on writing (not counting those borrowed or given away.) Adding those would bring the number up by 35 or more. I read all, highlighted most, and drove the facts into my brain by writing papers (for myself) on them.
This week, as I began the process of outlining my third novel (having just given over number two to the temporary care and custody of my agent and new editor) I thumbed over a few of my favorites and realized, with gratitude, how much these authors gave me. A private MFA (minus the personal critique—for that I thank Grub Street's Master Novel Workshop, led by the incredible Jenna Blum.)
I cannot be more grateful. Thank you all, generous writers of craft and more.
On Revision: "Cut it by 10 percent. Cut everything by 10 percent . . . Cut phoniness. There are going to be certain passages that you put in simply in the hope of impressing people. It is true of me, and it almost surely true of you. I have maybe never known a writer of whom it is not true. But literary pretension is the curse of the postmodern age. We all have our favorite ways of showing off and they rarely serve us well. When you have identified your own grandiosity, do not be kind." The Modern Library Writer's Workshop: A Guide to the Craft of Fiction, by Stephen Koch
"The only way to improve our ability to see structure is to look harder at it, in our own work and in others'. When you read a book you love, force your mind to see its contours. Concentrate on structure without flinching until it reveals itself. Text is a plastic art, not just a verbal one: it has a shape. To train your mind to see shapes more easily, write them (and sketch them if you like) in a notebook. As with writing down dreams, the more you write, the more you will see." The Artful Edit: On the practice of editing yourself, by Susan Bell
On Craft:
"Significant detail, the active voice, and prose rhythm are techniques for achieving the sensuous in fiction, means of helping the reader "sink into the dream" of the story, in John Gardner's phrase. Yet no technique is of much use if the reader's eye is wrenched back to the surface by misspellings or grammatical errors, for once the reader has been startled out of the story's "vivid and continuous dream," the reader may not return." Writing Fiction, by Janet Burroway
"What is the throughline? Throughline is a term borrowed from films. It means the main plotline of your story, the one that answers the question, 'what happened to the protagonist?' Many, many things may happen to her—as well as to everybody else in the book—but the primary events of the most significant action is the thoroughline. It's what keeps your reader reading." Beginnings, Middles and Ends, by Nancy Kress
"Imagine you're at a play. It's the middle of the first act: you're really getting involved in the drama they're acting out. Suddenly the playwright runs out on the stage and yells, 'Do you see what's happening here? Do you see how her coldness is behind his infidelity? Have you noticed the way his womanizing has undermined her confidence? Do you get it?' . . . This is exactly what happens when you explain your dialogue to your readers. Self –Editing for Fiction Writers, by Renni Browne & Dave King.
" . . . the quickest and easiest way to reject a manuscript is to look for the overuse, or misuse, of adjectives and adverbs. The First Five Pages: A Writer's Guide to Staying Out of the Rejection Pile, by Noah Lukeman
"Because fiction requires a mighty engine to thrust it ahead—and take the reader along for the ride—backstory if used incorrectly, can stall a story. A novel with too little backstory can be thin and is likely to be confusing. By the same token, a novel with too much backstory can lack suspense . . .. Remember this: The fantasy world of your story will loom larger in your imagination than it will on the page . . ..
Balance is the notion that every element in the story exists in its proper proportion . . . When you lavish a person, place, or object with descriptive details, readers expect them to have a corresponding importance. Between the Lines: master the subtle elements of fiction writing, by Jessica Page Morrell
On Sustaining: " 'You have to remind yourself that it's very hard work. If you drift along thinking you've got some sort of gift, you get yourself into some real trouble.' Arthur Golden
'I try to remember that a review is one person's opinion—and a cranky person's at that.' " Elinor Lipman
'The only reason writers survive rejection is because they love writing so much that they can't bear the idea of giving it up' M.J. Rose. The Resilient Writer, edited byCatherine Wald
"Over the years, I have calculated that feedback on any given piece of writing always falls into one of three categories, and breaks down into the following percentages: 14 percent of feedback is dead-on; 18 percent is from another planet; and 68 percent falls somewhere in-between." Toxic Feedback, by Joni B. Cole
On Tension: "Inner censors interfere with effective revision in a number of ways. For instance, most fiction writers act like protective parents towards their characters, especially the hero and his or her friends. Writers are too nice. You not only don't have to treat your characters nicely, in revision you should look for ways to make the obstacles bigger, the complications seemingly endless, and their suffering worse. Avoid the temptation to rescue your characters." Manuscript Makeover: Revision Techniques No Fiction Writer Can Afford to Ignore, by Elizabeth Lyon
On Sex: "Sex is not an ATM withdrawal. Narrate from inside your characters' bodies and minds, not from a camera set up to record the transaction." The Joy of Writing Sex, byElizabeth Benedict.
On Public Reading: "Few writers are truly gifted at giving readings, and most have panic attacks before doing an interview, whether for radio, print, or television. And nowadays an author who isn't deemed 'promotable' can be a liability . . . It's important to plan your readings and selections before you speak in public. Long descriptive passage usually put people to sleep, as does staring down at your book for twenty minutes and reading either too fast or in a monotone . . . provide some meaningful stories. If an audience has come out to see you, give them something they won't find in the book." The Forest for the Trees, by Betsy Lerner
On Humilitation: "The lowest moment in my literary career was when I found myself bidding for a middle-aged oil magnate in a mock slave auction at a dinner in Dallas. I was bidding for the sake of Bloomsbury and for the honor of England, but I think the compounds the shame." Margret Drabble, Mortification: Writer's Stories of their Public Shame, edited by Robin Robertson
On Environment: "In truth, I've found that any day's routine interruptions and distractions don't much hurt a work in progress and may actually help it in some ways. It is, after all, the dab of grit that seeps into an oyster's shell that makes the pearl, not pearl-making seminars with other oysters." On Writing, by Stephen King
August 2, 2011
Mentors, Monsters & Muses
How many writers come up without help? None, I'd venture to guess. Most writers can point to someone who made the difference for them—whether it was as a long-term teacher, a workshop leader, or perhaps, as a role-model of great prose. (Jenna Blum, brilliant writer and teacher, played all those roles for me.)
Elizabeth Benedict is one of my favorite authors, and also one of the most multi-talented of writers. She is the author of five novels, including the bestseller Almost, and the National Book Award finalist, Slow Dancing, as well as The Joy of Writing Sex: A Guide for Fiction Writers. A few years ago she asked a few dozen of the best fiction writers around – including Joyce Carol Oates, Jane Smiley, Michael Cunningham, and ZZ Packer – who and what most influenced their lives as writers. The results are 30 celebrated essays on influences from Susan Sontag to Virginia Woolf, from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland to Harriet the Spy, and from the Iowa Writers' Workshop to a job running an after-school program in Harlem.
I asked Elizabeth is I could put the opening of her collection here—in the hope that others will have the pleasure of discovering this wonderful book. Enjoy:
Mentors, Muses & Monsters by Elizabeth Benedict
Introduction
The response to my invitation was overwhelming. One after another, in emails, on the phone, and in person, in a matter of weeks, dozens of fiction writers said Yes, they wanted to contribute to this anthology. Some days I would hear from two or three or four people, saying Yes, count me in. Of course, I was delighted – and slightly flabbergasted by the wellspring of enthusiasm. I seemed to have hit a nerve.
Several knew right away whom they wanted to write about – Mary Gordon on Elizabeth Hardwick and Janice Thaddeus, Jay Cantor on Bernard Malamud, Lily Tuck on Gordon Lish, Jim Shepard on John Hawkes – but quite a few said yes, emphatically, without knowing their subject for sure. Early on, Jonathan Safran Foer was deciding from among Joyce Carol Oates, with whom he studied at Princeton, the artist Joseph Cornell, whose famous boxes enchanted him at a young age, and the Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichi. Early on, Margot Livesey wasn't sure whether to choose her adopted father – an English teacher at a Scottish boarding school – or a long dead muse.
In saying Yes before they had settled on a subject, I picked up in writers' voices and in their emails a yearning to acknowledge and to thank the people who had made a landmark difference in their lives – to recognize them the best way a fiction writer can, by telling the story of their association. Because most of these encounters occurred when the writers were young and vulnerable – uncertain about their identities and what they were capable of – some of the pieces have a sweetly aching quality, and nearly all of them express abiding gratitude. But sweetly aching or not, a good many of the writers are looking back at themselves at a tender age when something powerful happened to them, a moment when an authority figure saw talent in them, or when they came to believe they possessed it themselves – and their wobbly lives changed direction and velocity. They knew, in a way they hadn't before, where they were headed – and what is more potent, and more moving, than that? It's like being rescued. No, it is being rescued – from uncertainty, indecision, mediocrity.
Life brings us emotional experiences to compete with that one in intensity, but the others invariably involve romance, children, family ties, two-sided associations that inevitably become messy, fraught, downright imperfect. But the feelings of gratitude a student or supplicant usually has for a mentor have an aura of purity about them – uncluttered, unalloyed gratitude – that's absent from most other intense relationships. It's fitting that we idealize our mentors. They are more accomplished than we are; they are in a position to bestow feelings of worth on us that carry more weight in the real world than praise from even the most ardent parents. Their praise counts for something out there – and because of that, it also counts in here, where we live and work and proceed with nothing but whatever talent we possess, whatever nerve we can summon, and the knowledge that the only way to get to Carnegie Hall, or its literary equivalents, is practice, practice, practice – which is to say, write, rewrite, rewrite.
Mentors are our role models, our own private celebrities, people we emulate, fall in love with, and sometimes stalk – by reading their books compulsively. In her essay on Alice Munro, Cheryl Strayed writes, "I love Alice Munro, I took to saying, the way I did about any number of people I didn't know whose writing I admired, meaning, of course, that I loved her books…. But I loved her too, in a way that felt slightly ridiculous even to me." When things go well, we are the beneficiaries of our mentors' best selves, not just their admirable writing but the prescient insights that divine talent in us before we know it's there ourselves.
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