Breaking out of the Girl Ghetto
The lovely ladies of the Lipstick Chronicles have kicked off a weeklong feature that spotlights a pressing question in the mystery world: is it true that guys get more attention and respect, and if so, why?
Laura Lippman leads off the discussion with her thoughts (which will continue tomorrow) with yours truly adding her rambling opinion on Friday. On the other side of the gender divide are David Montgomery (Thursday) and Harlan Coben (weekend.)
Already things are off to a discussion-worthy start:
TLC: At the Virginia Festival of the Book in March, a man in the audience commented to your all-female panel, “If you want men to read your books, why don’t you write like a man?” Want to talk about that?
Laura: I’m still trying to figure out how to write like a man. Does it involve power tools? A remote control? Submarines?
In answering that (very cranky) gentleman at the Virginia Festival, I talked a lot about that template I referenced above. But I also think we look to all writers as anthropologists, people who bring back-stories from places we aren’t able/willing to go. Those places can be literal or figurative. Richard Price’s success with his trilogy of Jersey novels—"Clockers," "Freedomland" and "Samaritan"—is based, in part, in the fact he took readers to neighborhoods and lives that they wouldn’t dare explore on their own. George Pelecanos has done the same thing with D.C.
But Margaret Maron has taken me inside a large and complicated Southern family—a place I have no fear of visiting, but also no opportunity of glimpsing from where I sit in Baltimore. And Elaine Viets, with her Dead-End Job books, has shown me a slice of life far outside my experience. Elaine may be writing light, funny mysteries, but she’s also writing about the day-in, day-out reality of living on the socio-economic edge. Would her stories be any more universal if her character was a day laborer who stood on a corner, waiting for a lawn gig? I don’t see how.
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<span style="COLOR: black; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt"></span>I won’t pre-empt my comments, but I think a lot of this discussion will touch on other, just as pressing points, some of which may spin off into future blog pieces over here (and which may prove just as controversial.) We’ll see.
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