Random Thursday Blog: We Need Diverse (Adult) Books

[hrj]

It is hard to argue with the focus that campaigns for diversity in literature have placed on YA books. (See, e.g., Cindy Pon & Malinda Lo’s Diversity in YA and the tumblr and twitter project We Need Diverse Books with too many team members to list conveniently.) Younger readers are the ones actively being damaged by a lack of representation and models in the books they read, and the ones least in a position to create or seek out diversity on their own.

But sometimes I feel like I’m being told, “You don’t need representation. You survived without it. You’re a Big Girl now; if you want books, make them yourself.” (Hint: I am.) Yes, I survived my childhood reading voraciously in the midst of a big empty hole where the books that might have reflected my inner life should have been. And I survived. (Some did not.) But I’d like to aspire to more than surviving. I’d like to read my favorite genres and see myself not just when it’s “important to the story” but casually, trivially, incidentally, and of course, sometimes prominently. I'd like to have the same pleasure-reading experiences that my non-marginalized friends have. I’d like some recompense for that big empty hole that still marks and mars my reading experience. I’d like to be able to pick up a book to read because everyone on my twitter-feed is raving about it and not have to assume that my identity will be casually erased. It doesn’t happen nearly enough.

One of my (not so) super-secret criteria when reviewing my favorite SFF and historical books is: am I given any positive evidence that people like me exist in this world? And, yes, I interpret “people like me” somewhat idiosyncratically, but it’s an index, not a recipe. A necessary, but not sufficient, condition. Sort of like the Bechdel test. A book can earn an extra star from me solely on this basis.

But—you protest to me—there’s an entire industry dedicated to publishing genre fiction about white American middle-class cis lesbians like you. What’s your problem? *ahem* I think you just nailed it. We need diverse books. And the lesfic industry falls down on the diversity aspect just as much as mainstream publishing does, only from a different angle. For me, one angle it fails greatly on is genre (not enough well-written SFF and historicals), but another is what feels like an unbalanced focus on lesbian characters specifically as sexual beings. When I say, "we need diverse adult books" I don't mean "adult" in that wink-nudge way. To a large extent, this focus is fallout from the same dominance of romance over other genres seen in straight publishing. But in the much smaller lesfic field, there seems a greater tendency for romance tropes to set the expectations for all books. This means that from both within and without the lesbian publishing community, there is a tendency for characters to be lesbian only when they need to be, either from the requirements of the genre or the needs of the plot.

I shouldn’t have to make this choice—the one I’ve been asked to make time and time again in my life—between being a fan and being a lesbian. Between loving the past and loving myself. Between the mind and the body. Maybe I’m old enough and tough enough that I don’t need diverse books, but dammit I deserve them.

Comments

[marfisa.livejournal.com]

I was just looking at the August Goodreads newsletter and saw a write-up of an (early twentieth-century) historical novel that sounds as if it at least theoretically qualifies for the Diverse Books for Adults category. It's called "Orphan Number Eight." I believe the author's name is Kim Alkavine, or something like that. It's about a girl named Rachel in around 1914 who gets sent to a Jewish orphanage in New York City at age four when her mother is killed, then winds up being selected as a subject in a rather inhumanely administered experiment--ironically overseen by a female doctor--aimed at preventing tonsillectomies by proactively subjecting children's tonsils to repeated doses of X-rays. Unfortunately, this treatment has multiple side effects, including alopecia and, probably, the breast cancer symptoms Rachel eventually develops as an adult.

Fast forward to the 1950's, where adult Rachel is a nurse whose newest patient turns out to be none other than the elderly Mildred Solomon, the same doctor who so unfeelingly subjected her to a lab animal-like existence when she was a small child several decades earlier. When Rachel confronts the doctor about the unnecessary suffering she'd caused her young experimental subjects, the woman is unrepentant. This intensifies Rachel's indecision over whether to treat the new patient in her usual professional manner or succumb to the urge to pay the doctor back for what she did to Rachel and the other children years before.

Somewhat less central to the main crisis of the plot is the fact that Rachel is a lesbian. Preliminary reviewers were divided on how effectively this was handled, although the one who was most critical of this story element appeared to be somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of a lesbian protagonist to begin with. Another reviewer approvingly noted that another lesbian couple is also featured in the novel, in the form of an earlier teenage patient of Rachel's whose mother forbids her girlfriend to contact her after the girl is hospitalized (unfortunately with inauspicious results). I haven't had a chance to look at the book yet myself, but on paper it sounds as if it might meet some of your desired criteria for diverse historical novels, although it's set in a more recent period than you might ideally prefer.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Sounds interesting! It doesn't quite hit my sweet spot because for me "historical fiction" ends at the 20th century. (I'm actually rather iffy about the 17-19th centuries, but will make an exception because I write in them.)

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

This would be nice. I'd love to have people in bookd be different genders, races, religions, sexualities, degrees of neurotypicality, body types, physical abilities, etc., not because the story is about that, or even because it's relevant to the story, but just because people are like that. Like in Friday[1], Georges is French-Canadian. Not because there was any particular reason for him to be French-Canadian, but just because some people are. Since I lived at the opposite end of the US from Canada, and since I was reading Friday as a tweenager[2], this was my introduction to "French-Canadian" as an identity. People need experiences like that, even small ones.

[1] Which is one of my all-time favorite books, despite its problematic elements.
[2] Which in retrospect probably would have scandalized my mother had she known what I was reading.

[hrj.livejournal.com]

Exactly. "Because people are like that." But like so many aspects of writing good fiction, it's harder than making all the characters resemble the author.

[brithistorian.livejournal.com]

Plus, from what I see as a fairly involved reader, even if you've got the authorial chops to pull it off, you're going to face push-back from (some) editors, critics, and readers. I think things are getting better, but it's also possible that I've just found my way into a particularly congenial echo chamber.