‘Twas the day of the Edgars, Part II: Speaking of hot button topics

While I really question the timing of this,

considering that the original piece (no link, alas) ran a few weeks

ago, it’s always nice to see Otto Penzler creating a ruckus, right? I swear, I think it’s a hobby or something:

Genteel? Or bloody? That distinction between two
sub-genres of mystery books—“cozies” and “hard-boiled”—may determine
who wins the Edgar Award for Best Novel tonight. And the outcome could
go to the heart of a debate within the industry: Are female
mystery-writers—most often the authors of the more non-threatening,
proper cozies—even worthy of the award? Otto Penzler, dean of
mystery-writing in America, says no.

   

  “The women who write [cozies] stop the action to go
shopping, create a recipe, or take care of cats,” he says. “Cozies are
not serious literature. They don’t deserve to win. Men take [writing]
more seriously as art. Men labor over a book to make it literature.
There are wonderful exceptions, of course—P.D. James, Ruth Rendell.”

 

Margaret Maron, president of Mystery Writers of America, which doles out the Edgars, and winner of one herself (for Bootlegger’s Daughter
in 1993), sniffs at this bias, as she considers it, saying that good
writers have been overlooked by the MWA as a result of unfair favoring
of male authors and their bloodier plots. “Wit, humor, and domesticity
haven’t been considered as significant as blood and violence. Charlotte
MacLeod was never nominated,” Maron says, recalling the late author of
a series of cozies. “She wrote some very funny mysteries, but they were
considered ‘soft.’ She didn’t use the ‘F’ word. She wasn’t walking
those mean streets.’ ”

   

  That McLeod and the majority of authors who write
cozies are women raises a thorny question. Are the Edgars—and, by
extension, the mystery industry as a whole—simply sexist?

   

  “It has been felt that there was a bias against not
only cozies, but [also] women authors,” says Rhys Bowen, a Best Novel
nominee this year for Evan’s Gate. The prejudice, if it can be
called that, may affect Bowen’s chances of winning tonight. “I am
obviously the coziest on the list, because I have a small-town setting,
touches of humor at times,” she says. “Evan’s Gate isn’t about mean streets or violence.”

If I weren’t so damn lazy I could nitpick this to death. Sensational

lede that takes things out of context; selective quoting that takes

things out of context. I mean, it’s not like I haven’t wondered just a

little bit (case in point: my opinions of the Best First Novel nominees)

but out-and-out sexism? The Book Standard interviewed Bowen for the

piece, but what about fellow Best Novel nominee Julia Spencer-Fleming,

whose books are traditional mysteries w/o graphic language or violence

that deal with faith and religion? Maybe it’s not cozy per se, but it

ain’t hardboiled or PI or noir or whatever. It’s just a damn good book.

Which is, presumably, what the Edgars are celebrating tonight, regardless of the fact that the definition of a good book will always be subjective instead of objective and is based on a zillion different tangible and intangible things.  Never mind that particular year’s committee.

In other words, here we go again. Sigh.