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When earnest, scholarly William falls in love with lighthearted jokester Jerome on Chicago’s South Side, William’s family discourages the relationship. Jerome’s friends complain the two have nothing in common except being gay black men. William’s death in a traffic stop pushes Jerome into a seriousness of purpose unlike any in his free-spirited past.
Would your interest in reading this book change if you knew the author was white? Straight? A woman? From Vermont? Is it fair to evaluate a book on the basis of who wrote it? With growing demand for novels with minority protagonists, is it offensive for authors outside a given culture to jump on the bandwagon? Such issues generate heat in some circles. I’ll jump into the fray. All novelists write about characters different from themselves; otherwise it’s a memoir. I can never be the wife of a medieval merchant. The farther I’m removed from a character’s culture, the more research and empathy it takes to avoid out-and-out errors and stereotyped, one-dimensional characters. It can be done. The Navajo Nation honored non-Native mystery author Tony Hillerman with its “Special Friends of the Dineh Award” in 1987. Click here for his obituary in the Navajo Times. An author’s background may help me predict the credibility of a work, but the best test is how the novel comes across to people in the culture it portrays.
4 Comments
Corrine
8/6/2018 10:10:36 am
I think it really boils down to the skill of the writer in the long run. Literature is rife with female characters created by male authors because...well, you know. I think I expect an initial work to start closer to home, so to speak. But once I’m familiar with the author and connect somehow, then I’m more accepting of works further afield from their personal experience.
Some male authors write women characters of depth and complexity, who ring true to me. Others, not so much. Of course, not every woman author creates persuasive women characters either. If I already like an author, I'll read just about anything she/he writes. 8/6/2018 10:59:51 am
Empathy is a cornerstone of writing for fiction and non-fiction. Good point. True, nonfiction as well, especially if it's narrative nonfiction like biography or history. In extremely different cultures, nonfiction has to try to get at what motivated people even if it's alien to our ways of thinking. Fiction can be even harder, in a way. We still need to be true to the cultural setting, and at the same time our characters have to have some traits readers in our culture can connect with. It's more engaging to read about someone in the French Resistance than a Vichy collaborator who never has a moment's doubt about the rightness of Nazi rule. Leave a Reply. |
AuthorI'm a historian who writes novels and literary nonfiction. My home base is Madison, Wisconsin.
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